GoF Fragment 1 - Sometimes it hits the right one
by Mariann's
Summary: Hybris - a phenomenon sometimes completely overlooked - leads to a surprising loop hole. Out of the Triwizard Tournament, into a new family. Sirius/Remus Harry/Hermione James/Lily and others.
1. 1 To Get out of the Tournament

**Chapter 1 – To Get out of the Tournament**

"Harry Potter!" Dumbledore called again.

There was utter silence in the whole Great Hall. Harry couldn't believe it. He looked at Hermione first, and then at Ron, then back to Hermione, to find out what she might think. Within the fraction of a second a whole conversation passed between them without a spoken word. Harry didn't know how, but Hermione assured him of her faith in him. He got up, but did not move away from his place. Instead, he held up his wand and spoke loudly and very decidedly into the silence:

"I hereby declare that as I have not applied to participate in the tournament by putting my name into the Goblet of Fire, neither by my own hand nor by any helping hand of an older student, I shall not take part in the Triwizard Tournament. Neither do I have the need nor the want for this prize money nor eternal fame, having more of the latter than anyone could wish for and enough of the former in my own right. My words are the truth as so I speak, so mote it be upon my life and my magic."

The white flash of light that followed this sincere declaration and oath left everyone speechless. One part of the Great Hall's population was shocked to hear the declaration as such, but also that a chosen candidate refused this chance! The others were simply astounded at Harry's presence of mind and readiness to decline what he never wanted in the first place. Ron was going out of his mind completely! He never even listened to what Harry said, he only registered that Harry had somehow made it into the Goblet without telling his best friend how to do it. That was where his thinking had stopped and his anger had started, pushing all rational thought away.

The reactions along the head table were completely different. In the midst of the table sat Dumbledore. He had almost doubled over and lost his balance when Harry had begun his little speech. This was most unexpected! Not that he had expected to see Harry's name being brought forth from the Goblet, but it was certainly unexpected to see the boy's quick, decisive and very public reaction. Dumbledore had read the name almost with glee, finding it a nice confirmation that this would lure Harry to try to participate. Two months into his fourth year Harry hadn't shown any more promises than he had ever done before, being an average student with average interests and abilities. Dumbledore's mind tried to assess two conundrums at once: How did Harry know that he could refuse? Who had placed his name into the Goblet if Harry really wasn't responsible himself? The white light had confirmed him to tell the truth. The old headmaster didn't doubt that the boy's magic was as intact as his life.

Dumbledore never even noticed the rage that had come up in his Defence professor. 'Moody' just saw his carefully laid out plans shatter. He would have to actively kidnap Harry now, couldn't do it under the guise of winning the Trophy. A plan, so simple and easy to work was now torn to pieces and his master would not be happy at best, furious to the point of killing his servant at worst. Said servant was well aware that Voldemort never had any scruples to kill even his most devoted servants. He just never thought he would be amongst those who suffered this final act of service to their master.

Hermione pulled Harry back down and hugged him for everything she (and he) was worth. Harry turned to her and looked into chocolate coloured eyes that shone in affirmative and loving ways. She whispered:

"Friendship, and bravery, and love, Harry! Well done!"

With a little memory flash Harry heard the words she had spoken back in first year before he moved on to meet Quirrell. But this time she added what she hadn't dared to say as a shy first year: 'Love'! What a big word, but the feelings that stirred deep within him confirmed that the word was spoken rightfully. His lips broadened to a wide smile and his green eyes answered all the questions Hermione still could have had. Her hug loosened and only their hands were still connected.

Meanwhile the shock around them abated somewhat and was replaced by murmurs and some shouts and when Dumbledore once again tried to call Harry to the front Harry turned back and repeated:

"I said no! You have your three champions; I will not be forced to participate in some hare-brained thing that I never asked to play in."

Crouch now looked at him with icy eyes and remarked, pointing at the slip Dumbledore still held in his hands:

"This is a binding magical contract. You have to compete or you will lose your magic!"

"I highly doubt that. This slip of paper may contain my name, but it has none of my magical essence or anything physical from me. It cannot even connect to me! If anything, it will take hold of the magic of the person who wrote this slip and put it in the Goblet, there's physical evidence from them, their handwriting! Besides - at what point would I lose my magic? Now? At the end of the tournament? When the first task starts? When it ends? Because right now all feels exactly as it has always felt inside of me! – Expecto Patronum!"

Harry cast the spell effortlessly and a very solid looking Prongs proved that at least for the moment he still had his magic. The questions effectively shut even the head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation up. The Tournament responsible officials gave up and walked off into the room where they had sent the other champions.

Around Harry some of his house mates started to lay into him:

"How can you be such a coward? You get the chance… I would have given an arm and a leg for the opportunity… Why? Why are you crawling back out?"

George and Fred finally stopped the accusations when Fred said:

"If Harry said he didn't put in his name it means he never wanted to apply anyway, doesn't it? It takes a lot more courage to say no than it would take to accept. Can't any of you idiots see what it would have done to him? I for one think he's done the right thing even if it would have been nice for Gryffindor."

"And I would have gladly accepted to participate if I were three years older and more experienced and could actually apply! Then I would have been proud to stand there for Gryffindor, people. But someone tried to cheat me into this tournament for their nefarious reasons and I'm not having it," Harry added. "Besides, most of the school would have thought I cheated to get my name into the Goblet, wouldn't they? When it comes to me they always think the worst."

The Weasley twins, who were extremely popular with all of Gryffindor, settled the matter within the house. Harry knew that it wasn't yet over; the Slytherins especially would probably lay into him even worse. But he was prepared for a few more official statements in the Great Hall should they be needed.

But after his oath not even the Slytherins dared to call Harry a cheat. All of them knew what a light as white as the one they saw shine after the oath meant. The only thing that most pupils talked about was that shimmering Patronus, that impressively large stag, a 16-ender that could easily kill someone with its impressive antlers. By far not everyone at the school knew what the spell and its manifestation represented, but those who did now thought fairly differently of Harry. He, barely into his fourth year, had just shown them he knew a spell most seventh years were never able to get to form.

O

The Death Eater that had taken over Alastor Moody's place seethed. There was no way he could kidnap Harry right out of the school, people would be on alert and he would be too quickly missed. On top of that the boy was now warned that there was someone acting against him; at least if he was in his right mind he was warned. Nevertheless, he had to report his failure to his master and so a non-descript school owl made its way out of the school. He didn't even dare to think about Voldemort's reaction!

The thing that was Voldemort was beside himself! He had personally written out that slip and put as much of his confounding essence in that he was able to, and now the boy had refused! He couldn't be forced to compete, but Voldemort was of the opinion that the boy was weak and had nothing to resist the temptation that competing in such a tournament would arouse in him. The carefully laid out plans were gone for the time being. They had to start thinking of something else. The thing wanted Harry's blood and no one else's. Voldemort was convinced that only having the blood of this particular enemy would allow him to overcome the boy's mother's protection.

O

Harry was able to enjoy the beginning of what looked like a comparatively normal year at Hogwarts. He had written all about the mysterious entering of his name to Sirius, who, being on the way north anyway, wrote back to him asking his godson to report anything unusual he could find, even if it was only something he might spot on the Marauders' Map. That told Harry it might be a good idea to have a look at that map regularly.

Ron had completely turned away from Harry and Hermione. He was so angry that he never even considered his friend had been misused. He was the only one in Gryffindor who did not heed his brothers' words. Nevertheless, he found reasonable contact with Seamus and Dean, even though they both didn't share his opinion on Harry. Dean told him point blank that he was allowed to hang out with them, but that this subject was not talked about in their presence.

Harry hardly missed Ron. He came to an understanding with Hermione and by the time the first task of the tournament was announced they walked hand in hand down to the arena that had been erected, chatting with Neville, whom they had taken a bit more under their wing.

Neville, who had never had any really close friends so far, had been invited to study with Harry and Hermione and had blossomed greatly since then. He walked by their side with more confidence now. Together they found seats in one of the upper rows to watch the first task. Hermione held tightly to Harry's arm. He had refused to compete - would he now lose his magic because of the contract he hadn't accepted? He was still sure he wouldn't.

The three champions came, got their golden eggs and went. Harry, Hermione and Neville left the makeshift stadium and returned to the castle. On the way Harry levitated a stone with perfect ease from the ground.

"Obviously I haven't lost my magic by not competing. The whole binding magical contract seems to be a sham after all," he commented.

O

In the old Riddle House Wormtail had just come back into the room where his Master sat on his chair and found the homunculus screaming his head off, but entirely without the magical power to follow his demands. Wormtail noticed quickly that this would be the end of the nightmare that was Voldemort. The Dark Lord tried to curse his servant, but found himself utterly unable to get his wand to work. It clattered to the floor and the homunculus followed swiftly, completely and utterly dead! As it had been the construct of magic it couldn't live without the magic that it needed to sustain its tiny bit of life. As it had lost its magic before it died it could not escape as a spirit because its non-magical remainder of the soul had also lost its connection to all of its magical Horcruxes.

Pettigrew stared at the beast that had tried to get a new body. It was completely dead, but there was no spirit anywhere in sight. He himself wasn't much of a wizard, but he knew that if Voldemort had not died from his own killing curse in 1981, then he shouldn't have completely died now. Then he heard the snake crawling up to him and killed it immediately with a well-placed Reducto. He knew he had to get away if he wanted to survive and he saw no other possibility than to live his life out as a rat now. He scurried away from the place immediately.

O

Back in Hogwarts the impostor who had taken Moody's place felt the Dark Mark weaken again. He stared at it in shock! Something must have befallen his Master, he thought and he immediately sought an opportunity to leave and check on things. When he reached the Riddle House he only found a lump of dead meat where his Master had sat on his chair, a dead snake and a missing Pettigrew. He immediately remembered Potter's remark that he thought the loss of magic would probably befall the one who wrote the slip; seeing the proof of that theory, he broke down and howled!

O

At Hogwarts, Harry felt something stir in his scar. Hermione was with him and watched in horror as a black, gooey mass started to emerge from the scar. She immediately pulled Harry to the hospital wing where Poppy Pomfrey cleaned Harry up and checked his scar, only to find that it had almost vanished! She checked all the magical properties, of the goo as well as Harry's scar, but couldn't find anything negative at all. Relieved, she sent the two students back to their tower.

The next weekday Dumbledore announced at dinner that Professor Moody was missing from the castle. Harry looked at the Marauders' Map and found that Moody was right there in his rooms. He went there and knocked, but received no answer. After consulting the map once more he tried the doorknob and found it open. There was no one in the office, but it had a door that led to the rooms beyond, which were the teacher's accommodation. He followed through the next door, where he found no one either.

"That's strange," he said to Hermione. Both checked the map and found the dot representing Alastor Moody right next to themselves.

"It certainly is - Professor Lupin and Sirius said that the map never lies. Professor Moody should be here or at least his body should be. Could it malfunction?"

"I don't think it does, Hermione. He must be here somewhere."

They started to search the rooms and even opened up the heavy trunk that was placed in the bedroom. It had seven locks, but the keys were stuck in the top one. They started at the bottom compartment and stared: a ladder led them deep into a cavern.

"Lumos!" said Hermione.

In the bright light of her wand they found a body, motionless on the floor. Hermione immediately checked him for a pulse and found a weak response. She jumped up and said:

"Stay here, I'll call Madam Pomfrey."

"Will do. Do you think I should enervate him?"

"No, I wouldn't suggest you do - leave it to her."

The school's healer came with astonishing speed, levitated the body out and placed him on the bed. A quick examination later brought the life back into Alastor Moody and what a life! He was so spitting mad that the kids fled to the other room. When Pomfrey talked to her patient he said that he had no idea how he came to be in his own trunk and the last thing he remembered was some commotion he had announced to the Aurors on August 31st.

Called to investigate, Dumbledore quickly understood that the Moody who had taught school for two months had been an impostor! He couldn't believe that he had not noticed his old friend wasn't really his friend. Moody laid into him for being too lax in security matters! He was mad as well because his magical eye and his peg leg had gone to who knows where! The peg leg was quickly replaced, but the magical glass-eye would take a few days to be restored by a craftsman and sent back to Hogwarts.

Harry and Hermione had hidden themselves in the office to listen in. They left once they knew most of the facts and took the detour to the library where they penned yet another letter to Sirius. This they took to the Owlery together and sent it with one of the school owls. Then Harry turned to Hedwig:

"Hedwig, do you think you might be able to find Wormtail?"

The owl simply looked back at him as if he was asking something completely foolish. To Miss Hedwig it was completely irrelevant what form the rat had, she would find the man.

"Okay. I may have an order for you later on. We need to think how to proceed. He knows you very well; we might have to disguise you."

On the way back to the common room they crossed the Weasley twins. One of them approached them and talked to Hermione about her obsession with the house-elves and to go down to the kitchens and see them herself. As an afterthought George said:

"Talk to them. Find out what they themselves need before you try to campaign them to something they might not even want. Maybe you should start to campaign for better treatment instead of freedom. The Hogwarts elves in any case are happy. Their magic is so strong that they hardly do more than snap their fingers to get their work done. Not exactly hard labour to them!"

The twins showed Hermione the way to the kitchens and Harry went with her, out of solidarity. As soon as they stepped inside the kitchen they were surrounded by a whole bunch of the little beings. Harry couldn't help himself. Their eagerness and bubbliness made him smile. Until there was a shriek and a tiny missile flew towards Harry, hugging him tight around his midriff - which was as far as the creature could reach. Harry immediately recognised the little elf; it was Dobby.

"Master Harry Potter his Lordship Sir! You is here in the kitchens! What can Dobby be doing for Master Harry Potter his Lordship Sir?"

Harry had to overcome a bout of laughter that tried to get out of him, but he managed to simply say:

"Dobby! Don't call me all these titles, please, I'm just Harry! Hello to you, too. It's nice to meet you here."

"Dobby is finding work here, but he would much more like to work for you, Sir."

"But I don't have a house yet, Dobby, what would you do?"

"Oh, there is much Dobby could do for Sir, but you is have to take Dobby as your house-elf first…" the little elf slyly said.

Hermione snapped for air. Dobby, who wanted to be free, all of a sudden wanted to be Harry's elf? On his own free will?

"But didn't you want to be free, Dobby?" she asked.

Dobby's ears flopped and he dropped the lids over his tennis ball eyes. He shook his head and said:

"Dobby just wanted to be free of his evil master. Old master did evil things for his master and he mistreated the elves. But Dobby must find binding again, or will lose his own magic. House-elves need binding to live. I is not wanting to bond with Hogwarts."

Harry turned to the elf, surprised.

"Then how did you survive until now?"

"Dobby survives - just about, because is working here at school. But is not a good life and prefers to belong to a family. Other Hogwarts elves are bound to the school."

"I'm only me for the time being, Dobby. I do want a family someday, but that will be a good long while off…"

"Does not matter. One day you is going to be master over big, big house and Dobby would be happy elf! When you is not needing me Dobby can always help here at Hogwarts."

"Or my Godfather," Harry mumbled, having a sudden idea.

Hermione looked up questioningly.

"He could bring him something to eat, for example. Help him hiding," Harry whispered.

"True. But enslaving?"

"Dobby, I'd love to have you, but is it okay to pay you wages? Like maybe ten Galleons a month?"

"Is being too much, Master, I is wanting only one Galleon!"

"Five. That's my last word," said Harry.

Hermione thought it somewhat wrong that a servant would want to talk an offer down, but Dobby accepted the new wage and explained to Harry what he would have to do to bind Dobby to him. Harry followed the short procedure and knew instantly that a bond had been established. Dobby confirmed that by sighing and informing him first and foremost:

"Now Dobby can be keeping Harry Potter's secrets and no one can force them out of Dobby. You can call Dobby from anywhere and Dobby can be finding you. You can name people who can call Dobby as well."

"Good. Please listen for me, for Hermione here, and for my Godfather, Sirius Black. Do you think we should include anyone else, Hermione? Maybe Fred and George? I can trust them. And Professor Remus Lupin."

Dobby was of course astonished that Sirius Black was mentioned. Harry explained to the little elf - and all other house-elves around them:

"Sirius Black was not our Secret Keeper and has not betrayed me and my parents. He has been framed by the real Secret Keeper who, funny enough, was the one he was supposed to have killed, Peter Pettigrew. Pettigrew is still alive and out there trying to help Voldemort! And so Sirius was thrown into prison even though he hadn't killed anyone. It would be nice of all of you to help us helping him staying hidden until his name can be cleared. We'll need Pettigrew before Sirius can be freed."

One of the older elves came closer and said:

"We is helping you, Sir, we is knowing that he is good man. He is always being kind to us elves, only being harsh to Kreacher, his old family's elf. We is not liking that he has to suffer."

"Do you know him?"

"Tilly is be knowing him since he found the kitchens here in his second year, together with sir's father."

"Great! Thank you very much."

Later on, Harry and Hermione discussed the elves again, but this time Harry was more enthusiastic about them.

"Do you realise what potential there is within these elves? They are damn powerful, believe me, I've seen Dobby banish away Malfoy! That was something to see, I don't mind telling you."

"But slaves, Harry, SLAVES!"

"I'm paying him, too!"

"Tokens!"

"Not really - in fact taking the gold value of the Galleons what I'm actually paying him is roundabout 1500 £ per month! That's definitely not tokens."

"No, you're right, I have to admit…"

"Then please call him if you have need of something, you'll make the little fellow happy!"

Another letter was dispatched to Padfoot, one to tell him that he could get food out of the Hogwarts kitchens through Dobby and the other Hogwarts elves at any time; he only needed to call the elf, who was instructed to listen to his calls. A similar letter was brought by Hedwig to Remus Lupin. Remus certainly didn't mind to gain a safe direct means of communication with Harry and Sirius.

Sirius then remembered their old communication mirrors and together with Dobby they were found and reproduced so that Remus, Sirius, Harry and Hermione now all had a mirror through which they could talk to each other. Upon her asking Sirius also made another mirror for Hermione's parents.

When the Yule Ball was announced Harry immediately asked Hermione. They had spent all of their time together since that fateful Halloween night. Both were amazed that they missed their friend of three years so little. The pair, or the pair and Neville were a harmonious group of students, who shared their study time and their free time having fun together. They were just discussing who Neville could ask to the ball when they stumbled over a small girl in a hallway.

"Excuse me, I'm sorry…" she mumbled.

Both Harry and Hermione immediately noticed the subdued tone in the girl's voice. They stopped and turned to her.

"No problem. You look troubled, can we help you? I'm Harry Potter, this is Hermione Granger and this is Neville Longbottom."

"It's nothing, really. I know who you are… I'm Luna Lovegood…"

"Nice to meet you, Luna. But you do look a little out of sorts. What house do you belong to?" Hermione asked.

"Ravenclaw," Luna whispered. "Only, I can't go back there at the moment. My bed's probably booby-trapped again and I can't take that down before midnight."

As she said this as if it were the most normal thing in the world, Harry and Hermione exchanged looks. Knowing that this couldn't be good they asked Luna:

"Does Professor Flitwick know you're bullied, Luna?"

"No! I don't want to make things even worse…"

"Come with us. We'll go straight to the Professor. He'll definitely help you, he's fair with everyone."

"But then those girls will do worse next time…" Luna protested.

"Luna, have they not already done worse than at the beginning?" Neville asked slyly

She nodded.

"See? They need to be disciplined. Professor Flitwick will understand that you haven't said anything until now. But this can't be left unpunished."

Walking to the professor's office didn't take long and when they found him, they explained Luna's plight. Flitwick looked extremely saddened.

"Miss Lovegood, I'm awfully pained to hear there's such bullying in my house. Let us get to the base of the problem immediately. Thank you, Miss Granger, Messrs Longbottom and Potter, for bringing her to me. I shall take it from here."

"Thank you, Professor. Just remember that Luna fears they will up the game if they learn that you know about their bullying," said Hermione in parting.

"Oh, don't worry, Miss Granger, the Ravenclaws will soon learn what it means to betray one of our own!"

"Great! And, Luna, you're welcome to join us at our table if you would like to at any meal."

Harry, Hermione and Neville parted and Harry pulled them to an empty classroom, where he called Dobby. The house-elf arrived immediately and was all ears to Harry's orders.

"Dobby, please add two more people to the list of those who can call you: Neville here and Miss Luna Lovegood."

"Dobby will hear them, Master Harry."

"Excellent."

Dobby was about to leave again, when Hermione asked:

"Dobby, wait for another moment, I'd like to ask you something."

"Yes, Miss?"

"If we asked you to look for Peter Pettigrew, could you do that?"

"Of course, Miss."

Harry's face brightened immediately. He asked:

"What if he's in his Animagus form? He's the rat that Ron used to have..."

"Ah yes, even then."

"Could you fetch him for us? You'd probably have to stun him..."

"Dobby can do that if he is a rat. Dobby may not raise his hand against a wizard, even if he once did against his former master."

"Perfect!"

"Then Dobby is off now!"

It took the house-elf barely ten minutes to locate the traitorous rat. He brought the rat back to Hogwarts straight away. Hermione conjured up a cage, but before the rat was put in, the cage was spelled unbreakable. Harry then stopped Hermione for another moment and said:

"We need to disarm him before we can send him on..."

"Do you remember the spell Remus and Sirius used to turn him back?"

"Yes. I'll use it and you disarm him as soon as he emerges. Make the cage big so the human can't escape either if you can."

"Good idea. Here, I think that should do it..."

Hermione enlarged the cage, then they placed the rat in it. Neville was floored!

"What's with this rat? Isn't this Ron's?"

"Yes, it is. He's an Animagus, Neville. He's Peter Pettigrew."

"Ah - the one who was supposedly killed by your Godfather, but wasn't?"

"Yes. He got away."

Harry stunned the rat again for good measure. Then he had another idea and asked Dobby:

"Where did you find him?"

"Close to London, Master."

"And no ugly baby-like thing with him?"

"No, Master. He was a rat."

"Wonder what he was doing then? Last I knew was he was with that strange thing that's Voldemort now. Let's really think about the next step. I'm not sure it would be a good idea to get him out just yet. It would be easier to get him to the Ministry in this form."

"We should talk to Aunt Amelia, she's the head of the DMLE and I know her well," suggested Neville, trying to be helpful.

"You do? But how to get there?" Hermione asked.

"Dobby can be taking you sirs and miss?" Dobby offered.

"All of us at once, Dobby?"

"Oh yes."

The teens looked at each other, then checked the time. It was just before five pm, they could easily sneak out before dinner time. Hermione grinned and nodded.

"No time like now, what do you think?"

"Let's go!" said Neville.

Harry agreed. They made the cage small again, left the rat in it and then Dobby made them all touch him. He popped them into the Atrium of the Ministry. There they let Neville take over. He led them to the security desk where they asked to see Madam Bones. Harry and Hermione were astonished how confident Neville was in this surrounding, he told the clerk at the desk he urgently needed to see his Aunt Amelia Bones. The clerk sent a quick message and an answer came back within a minute. He told them the way to her office and Neville smirked as they left for it.

"Good. She knows that I wouldn't ask to see her if it wasn't important."

They had to go against the traffic out of the Ministry. Most workers were already on their way home, so it was easy to get a lift down to the floor where Madam Bones had her offices. They didn't even need to stop at the desk outside, because her door was open and she expected them.

"Hello Neville, what leads you to me so urgently?"

"It's less me than rather Harry and Hermione, Auntie. This is Harry Potter and this is Hermione Granger, Auntie. And the topic is going to be this rat here... which apparently is not a rat. It's their story to tell."

"I'm pleased to meet you, Miss Granger, Mister Potter. Won't you come in and take a seat? Then tell me all about this. It sounds all very mysterious!"


	2. 2 To Get the Ball Rolling

**Chapter 2 – To Get the Ball Rolling**

Harry looked at Hermione, but she gave him the word.

"Well - to begin with I would like to know what you know about that night at Hogwarts when Sirius Black got away this summer?"

"Far too little. The Minister has kept that very quiet. That he escaped is in fact the sum of what I know. Exactly what was written in the papers. I would guess you know a little more then?"

"So, he told you nothing about the two of us and Remus Lupin and Ron Weasley?"

"No - should he have?"

Again, Harry and Hermione exchanged glances.

"Yes, we think he should have, after all you're probably responsible for the search for Sirius, aren't you? The thing is that it would have been embarrassing for the Minister, because he didn't believe us and had he told you, you would certainly have at least investigated our claim. He kept saying that we were confounded by Black. The truth is that Hermione and I have helped Sirius to escape. But the Minister doesn't know that part."

Amelia Bones was speechless.

"You helped... Sirius... what? I want to know why you let him escape! Because as you mentioned I am indeed responsible for the search for him."

"Because he was framed - he was not my family's Secret Keeper and he didn't murder the Muggles nor Peter Pettigrew," Harry said simply.

Hermione watched Amelia, who seemed to sink into her chair.

"Really? Do you have proof of that?"

"Oh yes. But it might take a bit of force to get the truth out of our proof. Can we tell you the story as Sirius Black and Professor Lupin have told it to us last summer?" Hermione asked.

"Please do. As detailed as possible, please. I'll record it with this Dictaquill."

This time Hermione told the story. She left nothing out and told the head of the DMLE everything. Neville listened just as attentively as Lady Bones. At the end Hermione asked:

"Does this sound confounded to you?"

"Not at all. It sounds like my Auror partner was clean after all. I'll tell you now that Sirius Black and I were often partnered when he started out as an Auror and I was a rookie trainer. It would be too easy to say that one was the brain and one was the brawn, because we both complemented each other very well in both ways. In the year we had together he never put one toe out of line! We brought in a fair number of Death Eaters and all of the ones we brought in were actually tried and sentenced. Sirius - I never fully believed in his guilt. It was so out of character, but I was silenced all over the place, could never even go and talk to him. I couldn't even start to do anything when I became Head of the DMLE, because they thought I was biased. When he escaped I had to testify under truth serum in front of the full Wizengamot that I had nothing to do with his escape to keep my position. I am so glad you tell me he's innocent. - So, this is then the animal personification of Peter Pettigrew?"

"Yes," said Harry. "And we've seen him come out of that rat last June. But there is more, Madam. Dumbledore told me that there is some sort of a connection between me and Voldemort. And I can only imagine that it is through this that I've had one or two visions this summer about Voldemort. Both times Pettigrew was in it. He should be questioned intensively on what he's done since he got away in June!"

"No worries about that. Let me call two of my Senior Aurors and two other Wizengamot members - we need witnesses to this event. And let me floo call Minerva at Hogwarts to inform her that you are here and safe. He's out of it anyway, so there is no hurry. If he starts moving you may stun him again."

Amelia made a few floo calls to summon Augusta Longbottom, Algernon Croaker, Kingsley Shacklebolt and Gawain Robards. Then she called Minerva McGonagall at Hogwarts.

"Glad you're there, Minerva. I have three of your fourth-year students here at my office and I shall keep them for a few hours still, I will then personally accompany them back to Hogwarts. Apparently, they were taken here by a very helpful house-elf."

"I've not seen Potter, Longbottom and Granger at dinner yet, is it them?"

"Spot on."

Minerva sighed.

"Oh, all right then. They're certainly safe with you. What have they done now?"

"They may have just orchestrated the freeing of an innocent man who's been able to escape from Azkaban. So, nothing that's not perfectly honourable!"

"You mean they have proof that Sirius isn't...? Because Dumbledore assured us that there was nothing we could do, especially since he escaped from recapture."

"Looks like it. I think it would be a nice reward for them to attend the questioning and leave their own statements as well at the same time. I would actually be glad if you could attend on their behalf as well, Minerva. They are in your house, aren't they?"

"Yes, they are. I'll be right over. - Well done, Gryffindors! Take 200 points for your house for that!"

The three students were relieved that their escapade was forgiven, completely floored that they received 200 points for their 'misbehaviour' and were now extremely curious on the next few hours. Once Minerva had joined them, Madam Bones called a Ministry house-elf and asked for something to eat for herself and the children before their guests started to arrive. The first was Algernon Croaker who was still in the building. Then Gawain came in, shortly followed by Kingsley and finally Neville's Grandmother arrived, together with two people she had entertained as guests who also happened to be Wizengamot members, too, Adrian Greengrass and Lucinda Smith.

"What's cookin', Amelia?" Gawain asked.

Hermione, who had read Hal Foster's Prince Valiant stories was well reminded of the cartoon namesake. This Gawain had an incredibly cool air about him, a bit easy, quite humorous, powerful and correct. He stood fairly tall, with loose dark brown hair falling just over his shoulders and sparkling blue eyes. He obviously wore blue jeans and a loose shirt under his Auror robes.

Kingsley Shacklebolt, on the other hand, was a burly, tall black man with a completely bald head, friendly black eyes and a fang earring in his left ear. He didn't wear any robes at all, had come in wearing jeans, sweatshirt and trainers.

"A very mysterious prisoner to question, that's what's cookin', Gawain," said Amelia with a smile. "Should be right up your alley."

Her Aurors, male or female, especially the younger ones, were like the children she never had to Amelia. For some years she had been the guide Auror for all the rookies, a job she had filled with aplomb and talent. She still had a good relationship with all the Aurors, which served her very well. They trusted her and they worked well for her and the department.

Once everyone was seated and introduced she told Harry:

"It's your show now, young man. Do you know how to bring him back?"

"Yes. Can he get out anywhere? He'll try to transform back..."

"Doors are locked safely, I'll just spell the walls impervious," Amelia said and followed suit.

Harry and Hermione exchanged a glance and then cast the spell on the rat. Everyone in the room sat and stared at the point where the rat vanished and a man grew out of it. Harry immediately followed the change with an "Expelliarmus!" and two wands came out of the man's pockets. Both he and Hermione noticed that he was still wearing the same clothes he had worn in June. He didn't exactly smell like roses.

"Kingsley, Gawain! Secure him!" Amelia ordered.

She was shocked to the bones. This man had had the impudence to besmirch an innocent man's reputation to the point that most of magical Britain trembled in fear of him. As soon as she saw Pettigrew she knew that Sirius was innocent.

Croaker offered to cast a spell that would keep the man from transforming again. Amelia gave her okay and as soon as it hit the man he glowed white for a moment. Amelia waited until he was fastened to a chair, then she enervated him.

Pettigrew came to and first saw Harry and Hermione. He blanched, but before he could utter a word, Amelia said:

"Peter Pettigrew, you are herewith arrested under suspicion of treason, murder, aid to murder and deceit. Algernon, please be so kind to hand Aurors Shacklebolt and Robards the Veritaserum."

Within minutes Pettigrew was pumped full with the drug. Harry asked Amelia:

"Would you mind if I asked some questions relating to Voldemort first?"

"Not at all, Mr. Potter, go right ahead. The recording quill is still fully active! Just remember that to get a truthful answer your questions must be precise and direct. When he gives a yes or no answer only, you must ask for elaboration."

Harry approached the man chained to the chair. He looked him up and down slowly and asked:

"Are you Peter Pettigrew?"

"Yes."

"Did you go and look for Voldemort?"

"Yes."

"Where did you find him?"

"In Albania."

"What did you do with him?"

"I followed his instructions to create a weak body."

"We'll go into the details later on. What I want to know is: did you manage to create that body?"

"Yes."

"You then brought this body back to England?"

"Yes."

"Did it look like a really ugly baby with red eyes and no nose?"

"Yes."

"You were in an old abandoned house?"

"Yes."

"What's this house called?"

"The Riddle House."

"Ah! A family house of the Riddles?"

"Yes."

"Where is it?"

"Outside of Little Hangleton."

"Is Voldemort still there?"

"Yes."

"Do you not need to feed him venom from his snake, Nagini?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"He's dead."

"How did he die?"

"He somehow lost his magic. Without the magic holding up the magical construction he died."

"When was that?"

"25th November."

"Wasn't that the day of the first task of the tournament?" Hermione asked immediately.

"I think so."

Harry, Hermione and Neville stared, totally flabbergasted. Harry then had a brainwave and asked:

"Did he write the slip with my name on it?"

"Yes."

"Who placed it in the Goblet of Fire?"

"Barty Crouch junior."

"WHAT?" went several voices in the room.

A short recess was then ordered by Amelia. Pettigrew was put into a silent bubble, then she said:

"Barty Crouch junior supposedly died in January 1983, as far as I know and the records will show. If he's still alive, then one must ask how he got out, and where has he been? When did he get out? Who helped him and why? How did he get to place that slip in the Goblet at Hogwarts?"

"We'll take over the questioning from here, Harry," said Kingsley. "You've started us off very nicely, like a pro in fact, thank you!"

"I had a vision in summer about him and Voldemort, that's why I knew what to ask. Just one thing more – we, that is Hermione and I, have used an artefact my father, Sirius, Remus and this guy there have created when they were at school – it's a map of Hogwarts and on it we saw that name Barty Crouch several times. We always wondered why he was in the castle and very often close to our Defence teacher, Alastor Moody. When Moody apparently went missing we saw that he was still on the map and found him; the real Moody was being held captive in his own trunk! Maybe this Barty Crouch used Polyjuice Potion and impersonated Moody?"

Pettigrew spilled these beans and many others in the following hours. He told them all about the time between his escape from Hogwarts at the beginning of June and the Crouches. Amelia sent a contingent of Aurors to Crouch's home and wasn't disappointed when they got back with a completely ruined Barty Crouch Sr. Everything was put on protocol and when they asked Wormtail for Death Eaters who had escaped prosecution he gave them a long list of names. At the end all the witnesses signed the minutes. Harry and Hermione had given their statements and memories for a Pensieve and they promised to have a statement from Sirius in written and memory form soon. Bones sent an invite to Remus - via his old pal Gawain - to come into the department and tender his own testimony.

"This, Ladies and Gentlemen, will be treated with priority at the next Wizengamot session, which takes place a week from now. It will then only be a matter of a day or so until we can declare Sirius Black a free man. Do you think you'll get Sirius to give us his statements and memory vial until then, Harry?"

"I think so. We have direct access to him."

"Good. Don't tell us where he is, please. We don't want to endanger him. If we don't know we have plausible deniability."

"We don't know exactly where he is but we'll contact him as soon as we get back to Hogwarts," Harry promised.

"Thank you. Give him my regards, please."

Hermione then asked:

"Madam Bones, since Albus Dumbledore is the head of the Wizengamot, do you think it would have been within his competences to stop the Dementor's Kiss last June? Did he really have to listen to the Minister? He told us there was nothing he could do anymore, but then gave us a hint, no, practically an order to use the time-turner I had."

Minerva snapped for air, wondering how that could have escaped her own sharp mind. Amelia thought about it and looked around amongst her colleagues. Mrs Smith was the specialist lawyer among them and she said:

"I would say he could have at least postponed it until an official hearing took place. Why do you ask?"

"I suspect that Professor Dumbledore may have had ulterior motives of acting the way he did. If he only made us free Sirius, he also put Sirius a) in the wrong and b) in his debt. I think that for some reason he wants to prevent Sirius from becoming Harry's rightful guardian. And Sirius said he would be according to Harry's parents' wishes."

Amelia thought some more about that and mused:

"The problem is that we can't prove what they would have wanted, because nobody ever saw their wills. They are locked into their vault and apart from Harry no one has access to it. Dumbledore had it all sealed up, claiming that young Harry was placed with his remaining family and happy."

"With that last claim he definitely lied," said Harry immediately.

"Why?"

"I may be with remaining family, that's my mother's Muggle sister and her husband and their whale of a son. But I was never happy there. How could anyone be happy if they were called 'boy' and 'freak' as their only names? I honestly believed those were my names when I first went to school! They all thought I was stupid, because I never answered the first few times roll was called! How can anyone be happy when they're locked into a cupboard under the stairs as their bedroom every night and during many a day as well? They never told me anything, made me do all of their housework from the time I was about five and fed me nothing whenever they thought my work wasn't good enough. And Dumbledore must have known!"

The adults in the room looked at each other with horrified glances. Minerva began to revise her image of her esteemed superior.

"Why must he have known, Harry?" Gawain dared asking. He did so very softly.

"Because my Hogwarts letter was first addressed to the 'cupboard under the stairs'..." Harry whispered.

Hermione and Neville finally learned the details of their friend's upbringing. They weren't quite as surprised, but at least as horrified as the adults. Once Harry had started to talk he blurted it all out and after an hour or so he slumped in his chair, totally spent and Hermione as well as Neville closed up to him and put their arms around him. The adults in the room were speechless. None of them even had an idea about the familial circumstances of the 'Boy-Who-Lived'. But they could easily tell that no one would ever get closer to him as long as they saw only Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived instead of 'Just Harry'. Amelia Bones swore at that instance to do right by Harry and help him. It stung that this boy had given the community so much and received so little in return!

Minerva, against her usual habit, pulled Harry in a hug and whispered:

"I can't believe that I was so badly confirmed. I told him that the Dursleys were not a good place to send you, I had watched your aunt all day and had seen how unfit she was as a mother. I felt it, knew it that it would not be good for you, Harry. But I let myself be talked into leaving you there. I don't know how he managed to persuade me… I'm so sorry! I'm sorry that I wasn't there for you…"

"Harry... I'm not often admitting that I'm speechless, but today... I really don't know what to say. We have so much to thank you for and yet the whole magical community has treated you in an unspeakably horrid way by believing you were fine and not asking more questions. You deserve all of our respect and more! I'm very, very glad that you have found close friends who see you for who you are - not what you are in the eyes of the media and the public. If you would allow me to handle this as your advocate I'd like to investigate the reasons of how you were dropped at your relatives like that. I certainly know by whom. But I'll try my best to find out his reasons for such a treatment. Condemning a child to a life like yours is utterly cruel and utterly criminal!" said Amelia Bones.

"But... it was Dumbledore..." Harry whispered.

"That's even worse, dear, because it means he has designs on you in some function that doesn't seem legal to my knowledge nor fair to you. I'm going to list all the details I've heard today and corroborate as many of those as I can with the memories of what's been discussed today. I'm sure that now we have found a little loose thread there might be much more that will be disclosed. For the moment I think we have what we need. You and I will pay the Goblins a visit in the next few days to get your parents' will or wills unlocked. There may be some evidence in them as well. I would expect Dumbledore to have a few reasons why he didn't want their content on public record. I'm sure you can give him a free pass, Minerva, is that right?"

"Certainly, Amelia. – And if you will, Amelia, you could also take him to the Department of Mysteries to listen to that blasted prophecy upon which Dumbledore gives so much. I don't know what it says, but he mentioned it once or twice, so I do know it exists."

"I'll have that checked immediately. Thank you, Minerva!" said Saul Croaker.

"Thank you, Saul. Anything to get to the basis of Dumbledore's obsession with Harry. I really don't like to see how he's manipulating your life, Harry. I expect it to contain something that promises that you will be the one who can win against Voldemort."

Harry smiled and thanked both, Minerva and Madam Bones. He felt that the head of the DMLE really would use the power of her office to help him. She told him:

"You'll find that I have a position that wields quite a bit of power. If I decide something it can only be overruled by a quorum of the Wizengamot. The Minister can only give his one vote to that. This rule has been decided in the last war when we needed to have a proper check and balance. As it hasn't been repealed and we have never made use of it since the war the Minister won't know what hit him when he hears about this here."

Everyone took their leave from Amelia's office now. When Minerva came back to her own place she made a jump of joy and screamed:

"**YES**! Looks like you really did him in this time, Harry – or, much better, Voldemort did himself in! That's the best news we've had in years, isn't it? I believed Dumbledore that he wasn't gone and after your encounters in the past few years I knew he was on the up, but this – this is just SO wonderful! Whatever Voldemort might have done with magic won't help him anymore now that he's lost that magic!"

Her scream had woken the sole portrait in her room who looked at her rather disgruntled.

"Sorry, Mum," she said over her shoulder. "And yet not. THAT was one heck of a misjudgement by Voldemort. He probably expected you to fall for it and compete, didn't he, Harry? Oh, that's too good! I can't wait for that to come out into the open! It will pull the rug right from under Dumbledore's feet, too."

It was a very excited trio of students that went back to their dorms and a very satisfied Minerva McGonagall who celebrated the final downfall of her old fellow pupil by breaking open a bottle of her best single malt. She offered a silent toast to Harry.

It was just as satisfied an Amelia who returned to her own home, writing a long letter to a fugitive man who later received it by way of a snowy owl of his acquaintance. Hedwig had silently found her way to Amelia Bones' home and offered to deliver her post. Bones could hardly believe her eyes when the owl had soared into the owl passage window of her home, holding out her leg. She was very much impressed and asked:

"Do you take the mail from Harry to Sirius?"

Hedwig nodded.

"Are you Harry's owl Hedwig? I've already heard of your cleverness and your peculiar love of bacon. I don't have any at the moment, but if you return I shall have some ready for you!"

A quick bark expressed Hedwig's happiness with that offer. She took the letter straight to Sirius. She found him at his late grandfather's country seat in Gloucestershire, where he had at least found his grandmother still alive and ready to take him in. In typical Black family tradition, the house was excellently warded and hidden.

"This is Hedwig, grand-mama, she's Harry's owl… oh – but the letter is from Amelia…"

"Amelia?"

"Bones…"

"Careful! She's the head of the DMLE after all!"

"Yes, but I trust that Hedwig wouldn't have taken a letter from her if that one had been contaminated. Hedwig is extremely clever! I've yet to see a bird that's more intelligent than her!"

Hedwig puffed out her chest and ruffled her feathers.

"And you like to hear it, don't you, girl? You deserve the praise. You were Harry's best friend before anyone else."

Melania Black was glad that her grandson had returned to her. She was 90 years old now and had no one to look back down on except a bunch of Death Eaters in the Malfoy family. She really disliked Narcissa Malfoy for the snob that the woman was. Melania often thought that she fitted well with the snob she had married. Neither she nor her husband Arcturus had thought much of the Death Eaters and even much less of Voldemort. She had thought even less of her daughter-in-law Walburga Black and had always thought that it was a mistake to let her only son marry that woman. He had still been the heir to the family and Walburga had known that she had no power as long as he lived. Orion had unfortunately died even before his wife, leaving her all the room to burn out those family members she had disliked for some reason or other from the family tree.

Melania was quite pleased though that Walburga had to accept that disowning Sirius didn't mean she could disinherit him. He was still the heir and he had not turned out the way old Cygnus, Pollux and Walburga had wanted. Melania was satisfied to see that Sirius looked much better than the photo on his Wanted poster. He had cleaned up, got some of his clothes back from Remus' place and had filled out a little, living on the food that Dobby brought him from Hogwarts. He called the little elf.

"Dobby, please meet Lady Melania Black, the countess dowager. She is my grandmother. You can trust her. I won't need your food anymore for the moment; I'll stay here. Can you tell that to Harry, please?"

"Dobby will do so immediately, Master Sirius. Master Harry Potter will be happy to know that."

"I'm glad I finally dared taking contact with her. Madam Bones has written me a very kind letter that my affairs might be solved in a short while. Then I hope to offer your Master a home until he is ready to go out on his own. Thank you for bringing in Pettigrew, my friend."

"Dobby is happy to serve, Master Sirius. The rat has spoken much that Lady Bones was glad to hear."

"I'd believe that. Return to Hogwarts now, you have done extremely well!"

Dobby met Harry at his dorm room a short while later. When he told Harry that Sirius was at his grandmother's and safe, Harry beamed.

"Great! Is she good to him?"

"Oh, it certainly looked like it. He said he doesn't need me to bring him food anymore."

"Good. That's all for now!"

The stage was now more or less set. The next morning Harry was allowed to leave by Floo to meet Madam Bones. She personally accompanied him to Gringotts, where she asked to speak to the Potter family account manager. The teller Goblin looked into the lists and was a bit scared. He looked back up at Madam Bones.

"That would be Ragnok, Madam Bones..."

"Oh dear! Who could ask for us to meet him?"

"I'll have to send a message to the office."

"Then do so, please. If he is still listed as the Potter account manager then there must be a reason behind it. I know he's handed his mandates to other Goblins when he rose to his position as Director."

"I shall do so, Madam."

It took a good half hour, but then a very devote Goblin took Madam Bones and Harry to the venerable old Goblin who now represented the bank as its director. When they entered the large and impressive office, the director greeted Madam Bones with a friendly handshake:

"Dear Madam, it is a pleasure to see you. You require my help in a business related to the Potter family?"

"I'm pleased to see you, Ragnok, thank you for having us. Yes, that is correct - may I introduce young Harry Potter to you?"

"Egads! Yes, he certainly looks like any proper Potter does. I'm pleased to meet you, Mr. Potter. I knew your grandfather and great-grandfather very well, not only as their bank manager, but also as their friend."

"I've not met any of my remaining family yet, Mr. Ragnok. Unfortunately, my parents died before I was old enough..."

"Yes, of course, they would not have been able to inform you about anything. It was a great loss, they were such good people..."

They all took a seat and Amelia explained why they were there. Ragnok looked very pleased and set in motion a ritual that the Goblins used to establish the person requesting services was really the person they claimed to be. That was a quick procedure.

"Well then, now that we have established that you really are Harry Potter - your scar is not quite as prominent as one would have thought, by the way - we can go about seeing what your parents wrote in their wills. Once you have seen it we can execute the will according to their wishes. We don't do any will readings anymore these days, you know..."

"My scar?" Harry looked around to Madam Bones.

She looked at it closer and admitted:

"I don't know where it came from, but it was mentioned that your lightning bolt scar was supposed to have been very visible, but it seems to be only a faint line."

"It was a deep red line - prominent, as Mr. Ragnok just said," Harry insisted.

Madam Bones produced a hand mirror from her handbag and held it out to Harry who threw a look.

"Well, that's definitely almost gone! Not that I care for it, mind you, I'm actually glad it's faded out! Until I came into the magical world I actually liked it, but when everyone started to gape at it and reduced me to the thing I quickly began to loath it!"

"Understandable, Harry! So it has faded? That must have been something in connection with Voldemort's death then."

"Probably. There was a lot of black gooey stuff that came out of it and it hurt like hell. No pain anymore since."

Harry actually liked the new look of his forehead. There was no prominent scar visible anymore. He smiled. Ragnok took this as the prompt to start on the will. He gave Harry the parchment containing the last wishes of his parents. Harry sat next to Amelia so they could read the document together:

"Last will and testament of James Charlus Potter and Lily Marie Potter Evans.

On this day we write down our dispositions for the case of our deaths in this war. Seeing as so many of our friends and family have already found a violent end we would like to secure the future of the Potter estate.

There are three legates we wish to pass on to our friends:

Remus Lupin: a yearly stipend of 2000 Galleons until the end of your life, dear friend. We also leave you with a job - the Potter family history ought to be written, it's yours to do this if you would like to delve into our family's past - may you and Harry learn it by looking it up to be recorded, since we won't be there to be able to tell him.

Peter Pettigrew: 500 Galleons.

Sirius Black: custody of your godson Harry. Dear Sirius, we do not leave you anything material, rather we leave you the tough job of bringing up our baby, we know how much you love him and we also know how much Harry already loves you.

The remainder of the Potter estate is for our son, Harry, should he survive us. If our death should occur while this war is still raging and Harry is underage we allow him access to his trust vault and the family vault in company of his godfather and guardian, Sirius Orion Black.

To ascertain they will be together we want to state in this will that our Secret Keeper is Peter Pettigrew. Should we die at the same time, here in our house and by the hand of Voldemort or one of his cronies then it is clear that the traitor is Peter Pettigrew, as he's the only one who can give our secret away.

Under no circumstances is Harry to be raised by Ms Petunia Dursley and her husband, Mr. Vernon Dursley.

Should Harry perish with us then the whole estate will be shared between Remus Lupin and Sirius Orion Black. As the closest living relative, the title will go to Sirius Orion Black.

James Charlus Potter and Lily Marie Potter Evans."

The will was dated 28th October 1981 and witnessed by Frank and Alice Longbottom. Amelia looked up and asked Ragnok:

"Do you know if Albus Dumbledore ever saw this document before he sealed it?"

"I am not sure, but I think he had read it. He came on the day after the Potters' death and demanded that it be sealed away. To emphasise he brought an emergency ruling by a quorum of the Wizengamot that supported him. There was nothing we could do. Of course, he would not be able to keep this from the heir to the estate if said heir asked to see it as he now did but he could see to it that said heir never heard of it either."

"Okay. So he could have done it blindly, without knowing what the will contained though that is doubtful. – Still, I would expect he would have known that Sirius Black was to be Harry's guardian; that was almost common knowledge…"

"And then he had me come here with Hagrid who didn't know anything about anything really… he also probably had my key, because it was Hagrid who gave it to the teller," Harry remarked.

"That should never have happened either. We tried to contact you, but never received replies to our letters," Ragnok said.

"I never received anything from Gringotts."

"Mail screening wards… I suppose there is a positive twist to that, I'm sure you would have been swamped by owls – it's known that so many people sent mail to you over the years that you would have drowned in it, Harry," Madam Bones explained.

"Yes, but official mail? I'm not sure that it was right to keep out official mail. Ron and Hermione were always able to send me owl post. The Hogwarts letters also came through…"

"I'll have an investigation started as to where our mail landed. If there was a mail screening ward then I would like to know where all the letters went that Harry should have received," said Ragnok.

"And if that mail has been kept at all," added Harry.

"Yes, that should be found out. – But anyway, these legates can now be handed over – though I'm sure you don't want any money to go to the traitor, do you, Mr. Potter?"

"Isn't this legally binding?" asked Harry.

"No one would ask you to hand money over to the person who sent your parents to death, Mr. Potter, not even for a relatively small sum of money. More important seems to be the legate to Mr. Lupin. It comes with a job offer as well. I'm sure you would consider seeing to it that Mr. Lupin receives a copy of this will, won't you?"

"Definitely! He was our favourite teacher! We were very sad when he had to leave Hogwarts."

"Let's make a copy of this – here, one for you, one for Mr. Lupin, and one for Mr. Black. I think you should keep the original for now, Madam Bones. You'll need it for the custody case – in case there will be a case."

"I'll certainly see to it that the condition is going into the reparation to Sirius Black at the conclusion of the trial next week. It's useful to have this as evidence."

After that Madam Bones and Harry took their leave to move on to the Ministry where they met with Saul Croaker. As the head of the Department of Mysteries he was the public figurehead of the department, the one everyone knew what he was, who he was and what he did. Most of his Unspeakables weren't known by name to most other people. Croaker guided them to the Hall of Prophecies where he brought the crystal ball down by levitation. Only Harry could touch it and when he held it in his hands, they looked at it a bit closer. There was a swirling grey smoky mass moving around in it and so Croaker said:

"Looks like this one has come to pass! The mass inside would be a glimmering white if it was still active. Best proof that the monster has snuffed it."

"How do I get the prophecy out of it?" asked Harry.

"Let it drop – once it breaks we can hear the recording," said Mr. Croaker.

Harry did that. They listened to the Prophecy as Trelawney recited it. Harry snorted at the end.

"That's Sibyl Trelawney – she has yet to give more than one true prophecy. You should hear her in class. She's absolutely awful and a fraud to boot! Harmless mostly, but still… She loves to pick a student, whose death she predicts on a regular basis. Guess who it is in my class!"

"Not altogether that harmless if you consider the outcome of this. Obviously, Voldemort must have known about this – or a part of this. Which means that two very important people believed this to be genuine, and Voldemort fulfilled it by offing himself by his own hand," Croaker remarked.

"And that again clears up something that Pettigrew said. He mentioned that Dumbledore had known about the switch, even if Sirius Black wasn't aware of that fact. Dumbledore clearly claimed that the Potters' Secret Keeper was Sirius Black. And upon this statement Sirius was incarcerated without a proper investigation or trial. I did plead for an investigation but was cast aside as biased because he was my partner."

Harry was shocked to hear that.

"Sirius really can't have known that. He told us clearly that they had told no one."

"That's just it. It's not a bad thing for our case – it means we can oust Dumbledore as a judge, because we'll need him to be a witness. I'll have Madam Longbottom take over. She's his deputy head of the Wizengamot, therefore she'll preside over the trial."

They thanked Croaker for his time and took their leave.

"Give my regards to your friend Neville, Mr. Potter. He's my great-nephew."

"I will, Mr. Croaker."

Back at Hogwarts Harry recounted all he had learned that day to Neville, Hermione and Luna, who had fast become a fixture in their group, and said:

"There must be something I've missed, because if Remus is to study the history of the Potters there ought to be some house somewhere? But the one in Godric's Hollow was destroyed."

"Your godfather should know that, what do you think?" asked Luna.

"I think it's time to call Dobby," said Hermione.

When Dobby arrived, she asked him:

"Dobby, can you get hold of Sirius for us? And do you know of a place in Hogwarts where we could meet him without anyone else knowing, especially the headmaster?"

"What about the Shrieking Shack?" asked Harry.

"No, we'd have to leave here, which isn't a good idea."

"Then Dobby is thinking of the Come and Go Room. It comes and goes as the wizard or witch wants it to… it becomes whatever is needed."

"Sounds like a good place then."

Dobby explained how they had to act for the room to open. It was hard to believe, but when Harry actually walked three times back and forth, imagining a room that gave them space and comfort to talk Hermione said:

"Look, there! A door!"

The previously bare wall now had a lovely internal door with a handle. Hermione opened it and looked inside. Harry's imagination had created a cosy living room, complete with television, stereo, coffee table, sofa and armchairs. There was a large bay window with a window seat and curtains. Sideboards and bookcases adorned one of the walls. A fireplace opened up on another.

Hermione smiled as she opened the door wider and beckoned the others inside. She thanked Dobby.

"Come along, Dobby, and thanks for telling us about this room."

Dobby easily managed to smuggle Sirius into Hogwarts. The students had experimented a little with the room and found out that it really met all of their requirements and even reshaped while they were in it to adapt to their requests. Sirius was absolutely thrilled about it.

"Wow – had we only known about this room when we were still here… just – wow!"

The kids grinned. Harry introduced Neville and Luna. Sirius first turned to Neville and asked:

"Pleased to meet you all – are your parents Frank and Alice, Neville?"

"Yes, they are…" Neville said, a bit shyly.

"I have great respect for them, Neville. It was an honour to work alongside them and to know them well. I am so very sorry for you for what happened to them. I think I'll have to talk to your grandmother about what happened there exactly – they were also covered with a Fidelius charm, just like Harry's parents."

"As far as I know they were told that it wasn't needed anymore right after you were captured. Just a few weeks later we were attacked. Luckily, I was at my Gran's place when it happened. Gran said they put up an incredible fight."

"They would have. I still have a hard time believing that they have lost their minds due to the Cruciatus. And – Neville, I'm most of all sorry that a close relative of mine was involved. You may know that Bellatrix Lestrange is my cousin. Much to my shame."

"I don't think it's your fault that she's crazy, is it?" Neville answered very maturely.

"No, certainly not, but still – one feels very bad to have family like that!"

"I'll not hold it against you, Sir!"

"None of that 'Sir" stuff, please. I'm Sirius and I also answer to Padfoot."

"Padfoot? That's another name for the Grim…" remarked Luna immediately.

Sirius laughed.

"Well spotted. And this would be why…"

He transformed and presented them his alter ego. Harry grinned and patted the dog on its head. He looked at Hermione and she said:

"You know what? Now he looks so nicely groomed I think a pink collar would look great on him…"

"PINK?" Sirius roared as he smoothly transformed back. "Don't you DARE! I may be gay, but pink is one colour I would never touch with a ten-foot pole!"

The children laughed. None of the four could remotely imagine how the magical world could have condemned this man to a fate he had been forced to see. Harry picked up his Gryffindor courage and hugged the tall Animagus, who immediately closed his arms around his godson.

"Hermione's just made fun, Sirius."

"Of course, she has, Pup, no problem, don't worry! She knows that I know she was making fun. I was, too, you know…"

"You're really secretly in love with pink then?" Harry asked, finding some of his cheek.

Sirius roared again, but this time laughing.

"Nope, really not."

"I don't know why you complain, Sirius, pink fits your black coat perfectly," said Hermione, grinning innocently.

"So not gonna happen!"

Luna and Neville watched in fascination as Sirius and Hermione dissolved in a very sibling-like fight that ended with Sirius tickling the girl who responded with a mild tickling hex. They both went down, laughing.

And as quickly as they started, as quickly they stopped, still wheezing a little, but not angry at each other in the slightest. Harry was watching them in equal fascination. All four children were only children, Harry orphaned, Neville as good as orphaned and Luna had only one parent left. The only one who had what could be called a very normal childhood was Hermione and she had no problems seeing Sirius as a younger parent, like her young uncles and aunts, who often acted very much her age when playing with her. Their fun did loosen the atmosphere slightly.

Sirius turned to Harry:

"Thanks for sending me your parents' will, Harry. Did you also send a copy to Remus?"

"I did. He should have the choice to say yes to that job my Dad offered him, shouldn't he? He has so little in terms of professional options… and I would love for him to research my family history."

"He'll probably try to deny the stipend. But he'd certainly love to do research work, he's great at that. James put the stipend in because he couldn't watch him struggle. He's brilliant, it's really hard to see him in so much pain all the time. It made me so angry to see all sorts of stupid pureblood idiots finding admission to the Auror ranks, but they denied it to the best man they could have had! That's maddening, isn't it?"

"It is! He doesn't deserve that treatment. But, how is he going to research? Is there a house somewhere I'm not aware of? There is so little I know, Sirius! I don't even know the first thing about my family."

"Yes, there is a house. James put it on complete lockdown, the key to reverse that is in the Potter family vault – only you will be able to open the Manor back up. But we have to wait until my name is officially cleared and I have your guardianship for good, then only will we legally be able to enter your family's vault at Gringotts. You'll already find tons of information there! The most important documents were always stored in duplicate – original in Gringotts, copy at the Manor. You'll love it, Harry! We'll live there while you're still at school, afterwards you'll have to decide. But it's been passed down for quite a good few generations of Potters."

"Okay, that's fine with me. Should I pass this information to Professor Lupin or will you?"

"I'm sure he'd be happy to hear that from you," Sirius said with a smile.

"He looked like he couldn't get away fast enough from Hogwarts," Harry said.

"Well, yes, he would – he's been chased out of enough places. I know he was very happy teaching you guys; it's been really hard for him to have to leave because Snivellous couldn't hold his tongue."

"Dumbledore ought to have sacked Snape for that," Harry grumbled.

"He'll have to be forced by the board of governors before he does that…"

"I know. You heard and saw how he treats us – he's not only treating us like that, many others get the same horrible treatment. He can practically do what he wants."

"We'll see if he doesn't show his true face soon, Pup. There is going to be a big wave, soon! Now I think it's time for you young people – off to bed! I'll see you soon."

The next day Amelia informed the Minister of her findings. She presented him with everything, the parchment recordings of the original interviews and then the interrogation of Pettigrew. She sat there while he read and as a final part of her information she gave him the list of the people named by Pettigrew. He paled. Naturally, his good friends, the Malfoys, the Parkinsons and others were right on the top of the list. Before he could say anything, she told him:

"Each and every one of the people on the list is now in custody and will have to appear in front of the Wizengamot on Thursday. I don't think that Thursday will be enough to proceed in all the questions that I'll ask – this time under Veritaserum – so the meeting will be extended for as long as we need; probably well into the weekend."

"You… you can't… the Malfoys! You can't just put them away just because some crackpot is claiming to be alive…"

"Fudge, all these documents were witnessed by several people, amongst them Wizengamot members. Do you think we all heard a lie? From a man under high doses of Veritaserum? Who do you think we are?"

"This… will…"

"…Probably cost you your precious job, Fudge. And do you know what? You deserve to be ousted. Not only did you not see fit to inform DMLE of the fact that there were three children and a teacher who could shed light on the so called second man to Voldemort…"

Fudge flinched.

"… but you denied an innocent man his right to have a proper trial. Even a member of one of our oldest pure-blood families. You do not have the right to order a Dementor's Kiss, Fudge. I have investigated the rules on the use of Dementors. It would have taken a signed warrant with at least ten signatures from Wizengamot members to be able to order a Dementor's Kiss on sight. This alone will cost you your job. As you have proudly let the Daily Prophet tell the whole wizarding community that you ordered the Kiss on sight of the ex-prisoner you have condemned yourself without proper investigation, hearings and trial.

"I'll see you on Thursday at the Wizengamot meeting."

As she left his office, leaving behind her copies of the parchments Fudge sank in his chair and saw the parchments in front of him with unseeing eyes. He was scared. For the first time since he had taken office he started to look back on his actions and was sure that Amelia, who had been one of the banes of his existence in his office with her correct business practices would now dance for joy. She would finally be rid of him. Not even he was stupid enough trying to sack her. The director of the DMLE held an especially powerful position to the opposite of the Minister, a law that had been established early on in the last war to guarantee that quick decisions could be taken by the DMLE whenever necessary. He had been stupid not to have that law changed.

Then he remembered that she had said that the named Death Eaters had been taken in custody. He would have to let them out before the public knew anything about it, but how would he go about that? He called for his Undersecretary, Dolores Umbridge, who usually did most of his dirty work without any scruples. The panic, which had set in the moment Amelia Bones left his office, had only risen and quickly took hold of the whole person. He was thankful for his Undersecretary who would once again tell him not to worry, she would take care of the situation.

O

The Daily Prophet's headlines the next morning put an end to Fudge before the Wizengamot meeting even started: "Peter Pettigrew – the fall of a hero – he's not dead!", followed by: "Sirius Black – we thought he was a monster – but he's innocent!" and then: "Newly discovered evidence – DMLE arrests 34 former Death Eaters!" to the final one, which was tucked to the end of the series of articles, but it still came through prominently: "You-Know-Who – never fully dead and still around as a spirit, but no longer!"

In this article it was put on record that the former Dark Lord had somehow survived his own killing curse as a spirit and had managed to get a rudimentary body with the help of Peter Pettigrew. It also recounted the story of how this homunculus had written out the slip with Harry's name and that Barty Crouch Junior had been the one to place it in the Goblet of Fire – in the guise of Alastor Moody. It went on to tell that on the day of the first task of the Triwizard Tournament said homunculus had lost its magic and died within minutes after the task had ended.

The whole paper was filled with articles around the arrest of Pettigrew and the other Death Eaters. Sirius Black still took quite a bit of space and the fact that he wouldn't even need a trial, just an official pardon was regarded with great satisfaction by almost all of those who already knew about his innocence.

There was a huge uproar all over the country, and like everywhere else, students and teachers at Hogwarts were glued to their papers. There were at least ten extra pages, tightly filled with the facts that DMLE had already made public. No one thought about the beginning of the first lessons. While Gryffindor celebrated Harry, Hermione and Neville for their role in the story the Slytherin students found out that many of their parents had been arrested and would go on trial very soon. Their verbal expressions went from a low grumble to loud snarls and wands were drawn.

On the head table there were positive reactions from most of the staff. Alastor Moody, who had quickly recovered was there and he looked very satisfied.

"Trained the lad meself – I'm really glad he's turned out good after all. Never believed he was guilty…" he told Filius Flitwick, who sat to the left of him.

"Yes, I'm really glad for Sirius, too," agreed Minerva.

Snape growled. He had always known that Sirius wasn't guilty, just didn't want to admit it because he hated all four Marauders.

Dumbledore was stuck on the one on Voldemort. He had long since suspected the creation of Horcruxes and believed that Voldemort couldn't die as long as there were still Horcruxes around. But even he accepted that when the homunculus lost its magic it would never be resurrected again, never mind how many Horcruxes he had made. He returned to the page where Harry's scar was mentioned and the fact that it was barely visible anymore. Poppy had told him of a visit Harry and Hermione had made in the Hospital Wing, when she had removed a goo that had come out of his scar. 'Well, that's the lad saved then. No more Voldemort and obviously what was left of Voldemort in Harry must have gone, too…'

He left for the Wizengamot meeting. This would certainly come up, and he expected a lot of work. When he stepped into the chambers though, he was quickly approached by Augusta Longbottom.

"Albus, you are required at Madam Bones' office. You will be called as a witness, and therefore I'm to take the chairmanship for this meeting."

That came as a surprise to Dumbledore, but it wasn't unusual, so he accepted and left to see the head of the DMLE. She greeted him and informed him:

"This is going to be a very long procedure, Albus. I need your statements on several things, therefore you'll only have access to it as a witness. As we had to fear for the people Pettigrew named to go into hiding or flee we had to take them all in custody, so the hearing will be also to decide on their staying in prison. I need to warn you that Sirius Black might demand compensation for your part in his imprisonment and especially because no one ever cared to actually give him a trial and simply kept him in prison without a valid court ruling. You did have a hand in that and he knows you did."

"This is on irregularly short notice, Amelia."

"Yes, it certainly is, but the weight of this case is such that there is no way we're going to deny Sirius Black his freedom for even a day longer than needed. For the rest it's going to be preliminary hearings for the Death Eaters. The actual public interrogations will take place starting next week. We'll not only get the main perpetrators who managed to stay out of prison, we'll also prosecute those who have let them stay out of prison, Albus. This cannot be a case of forgive and forget, because what these people did under the guise of their white masks cannot be forgiven. The surviving victims certainly wouldn't ever be able to forget and most of us never got any semblance of closure, not knowing what really happened to the loved ones we lost. These Death Eaters never paid and they're now going to pay fully according to the law. Voldemort is completely dead now, we have found his homunculus body together with a completely crazy Barty Crouch Junior and a beheaded snake. I have spent a few hours on time turner time to study the case with Saul Croaker and we have come to the conclusion that Voldemort used a long since forgotten extremely dark ritual to create Horcruxes. Fragments of his soul were probably put in several containers, we've identified three for certain: the snake, Harry Potter's scar and a diary that Harry destroyed with the help of some Basilisk venom. We expect there would be a few more, but they will probably have lost their magic as well. Harry informed us that he had to visit the Hospital Wing shortly after the end of the first task. Harry and Hermione told me that there was some black stuff coming out of his scar and after that his scar was only a faint line anymore. It seems he carried one of those fragments of Voldemort's soul with him. And if that was dead then any others he might have made are now just as dead. As this is a long forgotten and also completely forbidden ritual we have never allowed the Prophet to even mention the name – in fact we have never even mentioned it ourselves when we informed them and of course we will never do so. We have found some very obscure material about it, dating from the 8th century, after which it was already banned, and believe me, you don't want to know what it takes to achieve it and even worse, what it takes to create the homunculus."

Dumbledore stroked his beard, never saying a word. In a few sentences Amelia had confirmed his suspicions and was actually able to alleviate his worries that something might have been left to allow Voldemort to return once more. But since he had obviously lost his magic and subsequently his life it meant that all of the fragments would be gone as well. He sighed.

"It certainly looks like he's really been caught in his own trap here, doesn't it?"

"He certainly did, Albus, that was one single great miscalculation on Voldemort's part. Pettigrew told us that he came to the room where he was and the homunculus was spitting mad, waved his wand around and tried to curse Pettigrew, but nothing happened anymore. We had no reason not to believe that, especially when last night a team of Aurors found the body. They also found Barty Crouch Junior who didn't come without a fight, but they did get him. He's back in Azkaban, already Kissed by a Dementor."

"What a relief."

"Yes, Albus – what a relief for all of us. Also note that we went to look at the Prophecy to hear it and found that it had gone inactive. Voldemort died by his own hand, poetic justice, isn't it? Just like the first time. Now. I wanted to see you before the meeting, because I think it is time for you to retire from your offices. You stayed on because you always knew that Voldemort wasn't gone and you felt that you would be responsible to stick through it to the end. You have. But you are getting too old to keep up with modern times and we need to rebuild. For that we need younger people who are close to the pulse of the time and willing to work towards important changes that have to take place to keep our currently stagnating and even dwindling society going and growing. I give you an opportunity to do it quietly and as long as you're on the up – if we call you in as a witness you'll be crushed by quite a few things we know (and you know) were less than legal. You can still go on your terms and free, keeping your good name intact. Stay on and you won't have that luxury. This community urgently needs a legal and social reform to adapt to living in the upcoming 21st century. It cannot be done when it's led by a man who lived a good part of his formative life in the 19th century."

This was a curve ball Albus hadn't expected. For almost a hundred years he had thought of himself as an important figure and was so used to that thought he was completely taken aback now. He only acknowledged Amelia's words with a deep breath and closed eyes. Then he gave in.

"Very well, Amelia. I shall tender my demission to the Wizengamot today."

"Thank you, Albus."

With that, Amelia gathered her thick folders and left her office. Dumbledore contemplated her words from before. He didn't doubt that she had enough dirt on him to have him forced out of his offices. Making a start with the Wizengamot would at least shut her up on that end. He got up and slowly moved towards the chamber where the meeting would take place. An Auror informed him just before the door:

"Door's been made into a Portal, Professor. You'll be taken to another location."

"Oh! Is that so?"

"Not enough space as it turned out… you'll land at the auditorium of the Edinburgh magical convention centre."

"Thank you for informing me about that."

"You're welcome, Professor. Have a good meeting."

When Dumbledore arrived at his new location he was shown to the area reserved to the Wizengamot. He knew it would be the hardest thing he ever did in his life. Give in to reason and retire. Before he took his place as the head of the Wizengamot he took the word and announced that he would put his position at disposition as of immediately. He thus opened the session, making it as bearable as he could by tendering his resignation from his position and putting it at disposition, announcing that Augusta Longbottom would lead the procedures. Then he stepped down into the ranks of the regular Wizengamot members before being sent off to wait outside in one of the rooms for the witnesses.

When he had looked around at the remainder of the Wizengamot he noticed that quite a few members were missing. He wasn't too surprised, Amelia Bones seemed to have arrested more than just a handful of members. Dumbledore had always known that these people were former Death Eaters, but he had hoped they'd seen the errors of their ways. What Dumbledore never really wanted to see was that the faction of the former Death Eaters were still in their minds prejudiced conservatives who were voting in the sense of their old beliefs.

It was very clear to Amelia Bones that these factions had to be retired. Those who did unlawful things would have to do so in the direction of Azkaban. This public meeting had been announced via the WWN just an hour before it started, and people were streaming into the Convention Centre. Amelia was satisfied. The news in the papers and on the WWN had served to bring in half the British wizards and witches.

Remus, Harry, Hermione, Neville and Ron waited in a room set aside for the witnesses in Sirius' case. Ron hat taken his seat as far away from his former friends as possible. He wasn't informed beyond what he would have to say about his encounter with Sirius Black, but he knew that after his statement he would be allowed to sit with his family who held a seat for him. He still smarted over the same thing he had since Halloween.

It was quiet in the room. It was a small lounge not far away from the Auditorium. The velvet seats and thick carpets made it cosy enough to keep the witnesses calm. Neville, Harry and Hermione quietly talked with Remus. They would not have to speak at the trial for Sirius, as he was already set free and kept a bit apart to act as a witness, but at Pettigrew's trial. Amelia had told them, they would be brought in early and would afterwards be allowed to sit in pre-reserved seats in the audience.

The auditorium was packed! People sat down in groups, whole families were there, some had even fetched their children from Hogwarts, because this would be the trial of the century. Whole families hoped to finally learn what happened to their loved ones, because so many crimes had never been solved.

One person was conspicuously absent. Amelia was worried and sent two of her Aurors to look for Cornelius Fudge. With the portals set up it didn't take them long to return. Gawain whispered in Amelia's ear:

"He's offed himself! We found him in his office, bleeding from slashes in his wrists, already dead. Blood and chaos everywhere, but only his own magical signature was observed. We've sealed the situation and put everything in stasis."

"Holy shit, really? Umbridge isn't here either…"

"Didn't see hide nor hair of her. We'll investigate that at the first opportunity."

"Good. That puts me into a bit of a bind. I was to be the prosecutor, now I have to pick up the duty as the deputy of the Minister…"

"How about Arthur or Amos?"

"I'll have to converse with Augusta for a moment and give a statement."

Amelia got up and pulled Augusta Longbottom aside.

"We're in a bit of a fix, Gussie. Fudge has decided to take the way out via suicide. Normally I'd have to stand in as his deputy, but I would rather stick to be the prosecutor, seeing that I have all the bits of knowledge needed. Wouldn't be time enough for a briefing of someone else for this role…"

"Who's next in line?"

"After the principle of the seniority it would be Arthur Weasley."

"I'll call him down, I can see he's there."

"Great, then that's off my shoulders, thank you, Gussie."

"You're welcome. Do you want to give the statement or should I do it?"

"Can I leave it to you?"

"Yes. Can you send an Auror to fetch Arthur down?"

"Certainly."

Amelia sent off Gawain and took her place again and the venerable Dowager took her stand as the deputy head of the Wizengamot. She banged the gavel. At once the noise in the room went down to almost a whisper, then it stilled completely.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to welcome you to this enlarged open session of the Wizengamot. I am sorry for the slight delay, which has several reasons. I wish to inform you that as of this day, our venerable head of the Wizengamot has put his office at disposition, therefore as his deputy I will lead these sessions until the Wizengamot appoints a new full-time head.

"The other reason for the delay is the absence of the Minister, as you might have already noticed. Madam Bones has just sent two of her Aurors to look for him. I have to inform you that what they found in his office must have been rather gruesome, as it looks like he's committed suicide. This means we're also without an elected Minister. Normally Madam Bones would stand in as his deputy, but she needs to remain in her position as the prosecutor because there will not be enough time to brief another prosecutor. May I ask the person next in line to stand in, Arthur Weasley? I know it's like no notice at all, Arthur, but we would be very thankful if you could take that role."

In the Auditorium Arthur sat with Molly and all of their children. Knowing about the trial beforehand he had wanted to have his children there when this bit of history was made. Having been called by Gawain already, he got up and answered:

"Madam Longbottom, I'd be happy to serve in that function."

Even though Molly gasped, Bill, Charlie, Percy, the twins and Ginny gave him a quiet applause. Arthur smiled at them and quietly moved out of the line, then made his way to the front of the big stage. He shook hands with Augusta and she thanked him, then he took his seat in the Wizengamot for the Minister.

The gavel came down again.

"The 538th meeting of the Wizengamot is herewith open. We have a long session, and one with much public interest, which is why it has been made open to all interested citizens. I am very happy to notice that so many of you have come to bear witness to these procedures! The first point on the agenda is the trial of the DMLE versus Peter Pettigrew. I leave the word to our prosecutor, Madam Amelia Bones."

One witch sat down and the other witch got up. Amelia had used the time turner to get enough rest and to have enough time for her speeches. The first one was to inform the public about the discovery of the wizard believed to have died long ago.

"I would like for you to cast your memories back to Halloween 1981. The morning papers informed us of the vanquishing of one Dark Lord Voldemort on the night of All Hallows Eve. Two days later there was another headline informing us of the incident, in which one wizard had killed twelve Muggles and one Peter Pettigrew. That said wizard had been arrested on the spot and carted off to Azkaban.

"For me it is a very personal story and one that saw me kept out from the start as I was biased in the eyes of the people in power at the time towards the wizard who was declared guilty of the crime, Sirius Black. The Minister would have listened, but she was cut off straight by the then head of the DMLE, Bartemius Crouch and the then head of the Wizengamot, Albus Dumbledore. She was told by Dumbledore that he knew that Sirius Black was the Potter family's Secret Keeper. Only the Secret Keeper could have told Voldemort where to find the family. Therefore, the Secret Keeper was the guilty party, and by assumption Sirius Black was claimed to be not only the traitor, but also the murderer. No further investigation needed.

"It was personal, because I had worked closely with Sirius Black for a year. He was what every Auror wants as a partner. He was one of the best young Aurors that Alastor Moody ever trained. We captured many Death Eaters. They were all brought before the Wizengamot and they were all found guilty and they were all sentenced to Azkaban by the result of fair trials, where they had their say and had their opportunity to defend themselves.

"I'm sure you're all now thinking that this is what civilised societies do when they have to try criminals, they still give them a platform where they can defend themselves, am I right? – Yes, that's true, but not so in the case of Sirius Black. He was never heard. The men in power simply dropped him in the prison and forgot about him. They never once gave him a trial. I was not the only Auror who was forced to stand back and keep mum by Bartemius Crouch and, later on, by Minister Fudge. We were classified as 'biased', because we were character witnesses who all knew that our colleague, Sirius Black, was certainly no Death Eater. He would never have brought in as many as he did if he had been one himself. The proof is in the pudding and you may remember the trial against one Auror who *was* found to be a Death Eater after the end of the war. His name was Nathaniel Trent and he now sits in Azkaban for life. His records show that he had four of his 'colleagues' in custody and he let them go before they could be really asked any questions. We were never heard. We were ordered to shut up. And the character assassination of Sirius Black started almost on the day of his arrest, going to a complete hype of accusations that were completely fabricated by who knows who, but probably founded in a statement by Crouch, who was extremely rude against Sirius Black. In truth, it was Crouch who was biased. He had always suspected Black of being a Death Eater, simply because he came from a family with many prominent known Death Eaters. He condemned Sirius Black by association.

"Only – Sirius Black was never a Death Eater. He had left his family at sixteen years of age because of his insurmountable differences with them, because he saw himself as a light wizard, never a dark one. He was one of the most open-minded people I met amongst the Aurors. And one of the most outspoken against the Death Eaters. He kept telling us that this way of thinking had ruined most of his family and that he wanted nothing with it!

"Today is going to be a show-and-tell about how investigations are important even for so-called clear-cut cases. This was an error of justice that should never have happened. There was no investigation at all! Because of one little sentence from Albus Dumbledore, i.e. that the suspect was the murdered family's Secret Keeper the Head of the DMLE never even took one question to the suspect. In fact, the whole case is nothing more than a series of failures on the law enforcement's side. It may have started by never asking the suspect a single question, but it didn't end there. The file was a complete desert of information. For a case that threw such high waves, there was remarkably little in the file that I found. It was called an open and shut case!

"I am going to give you proof today, that it was very much the contrary of such a case. Starting at the beginning I will call in three witnesses. I'll call them in together, because they came to me together to tell me an interesting story. I call Messrs Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom and Miss Hermione Granger to the stand."

After that long speech the three children were brought in and were led to the bench next to Lady Longbottom's dais. She looked down on her grandson with pride!

Amelia went on to tell the Wizengamot and the audience the long tale of how the children found Peter Pettigrew and how they went about bringing him in. It took remarkably little to give the proof of Sirius' innocence and Pettigrew's guilt. The questioning of the witnesses, Ron was called to it and later on Remus was also heard. The verdict was clear – Pettigrew was declared guilty in no time. The prisoner answered questions under Veritaserum and he could not but tell the truth about everything.

The next one who was giving evidence was – Sirius! Amelia asked him all the relevant questions and he gave his answers under Veritaserum as well. After that Ron, Harry and Hermione, together with Remus Lupin answered further questions and that was it for this trial. Pettigrew was taken out. His sentence was yet to be determined. Ron was shown back to his family, while Neville, Harry, Sirius, Remus and Hermione were shown their reserved seats. Remus and Sirius took the children between them, both with huge smiles on their faces.

After a short recess, during which everyone was allowed to leave the hall to get something to eat and drink or to just move around a bit, the preliminary trials against the former Death Eaters started. To everyone's surprise the recess had been enough time for Sirius to take back all of his votes for the Black family as its head as well as the proxy for Harry's votes, nine votes for the Black family and three for the Potters. He sent two people out of the Wizengamot area who grumbled but couldn't do anything about it. And he had picked up seven more votes his family held. Some of them came from people who now awaited their trials.

Again, Amelia Bones took the stand and led into the trials:

"I'm looking into the audience for now. I would like everyone to stand who has lost loved ones, be it friends or family, to the Death Eaters and has never learned what happened to them."

She waited for a few minutes until everyone stood. Within the crowd at least 50 persons stood. Amelia turned to several Aurors and asked them:

"Would you be ready to note down their names and when they were last seen? More details if you like."

Small pieces of parchment made their way to the people and all of them returned them to the waiting Aurors.

"Thank you. We have here a list of missing persons compiled by the DMLE, back in the day for unsolved cases, and would like to compare the two. Aurors Thompson and Miller will do that while we start the procedures."

Once the people sat back down, Amelia called out to the audience again:

"Now I would like for everyone to stand who has lost loved ones, be they family or friends, even if they knew who was responsible for their murders."

This time the crowd was much larger. While he stood up, Harry noticed that not only in the audience, in the Wizengamot there were people standing, too, including Sirius. Amelia studied the faces for a moment, before she added:

"Would everyone sit who knows that the murderer of their loved ones was punished and received a sentence?"

About twenty persons sat down. Harry. Remus and Sirius among them. At least 300 still stood.

"**This** is what the government of Fudge and Dumbledore have left behind. This is what the remaining Death Eaters, the ones who bought themselves out of their trials have left behind. And I'm pretty sure it's just the tip of the iceberg. This is why the Wizengamot today is reduced by about a third of its members, because they were Death Eaters who simply went back to doing their ugly work behind the scenes and who shaped the wizarding world to the shambles it is today. These trials will be what should have been done almost fifteen years ago. They will finally bring clarity to all the cases that are still open cases in the DMLE, even though we have left them open because we were not allowed to pursue them!

"It took that single little action by one young person, to bring to me the person who is the key to these procedures. The chain of events that led to Sirius Black's freedom and put his former friend to Azkaban gave us the chance to use the law code allowing new trials for old cases through new evidence. The single most important new evidence is a Veritaserum induced disclosure of the inner structures of the Death Eater ranks. We have been delivered many, many names by Peter Pettigrew. He also gave us a lot of information about the infamous tattoo of the snake through the skull. It is branded into every Death Eater's left forearm. It is a mark that only Voldemort could put there and it is a mark of life-long enslavement to the man. It may have faded for a while, but every single person we have apprehended has one. Every single person was forced to give all names they knew of other Death Eaters. And every one of them has been put under Veritaserum to ask them if they took their marks willingly. Let me assure you that this question was soundly answered by each individual with a 'yes'.

"These people have walked among us as if nothing had happened, no war, no murders, no torturing, no stealing from their victims, they simply went back to continue their lives! And we LET them! We've let them go on and what's worse, we've let them go on deciding on our laws and very lives! I ask you all, is that okay?"

One would have thought it was a political rally, not a preliminary hearing for a trial. But all the people in the room knew that it was as political as it was moral and lawful. Amelia was well aware that this was why almost all the people were there in the first place. It wasn't looking for cheap revenge it was that they all wanted to know why these people had been able to do what they did and learn what exactly each of them had done. And the people wanted closure. Remus was deeply impressed by Amelia's powerful demonstration and so was, very secretly, Albus Dumbledore. It was the legitimisation that Amelia needed, to show that this was not a tribunal, but a trial.

"Let us show you what they have done. We will only ask basic questions of each defendant today, but they will be asked using Veritaserum. This is the main reason they got away after the war, because they were allowed to lie and buy themselves out of their trials. And they were allowed to lie because they paid money so they wouldn't be subjected to any truth potion, which we will prove. All defendants were also subjected to purging potions to flush them of any substances that might counteract the Veritaserum. Though I have to say that so far no such substance exists, but it's important to know that no one could try to sneak out by claiming a potion in their body could have disturbed the outcome of the questioning. So – they are completely free of any potions within their bodies."

The Aurors started to bring in the Death Eaters in groups of five. They were chained to the chairs. One of them tried to apparate out and was thrown to the floor by the strong anti-apparition wards. The Auror who handled him was almost sorry.

"You didn't really think you could do that, did you?" she asked.

Once they were all seated they were put under the potion. Amelia asked them for their personal details and while all of this was recorded the potion began to work. The questions were short and went right to the core:

"Were you a Death Eater?"

"Were you a willing Death Eater?"

"Could anyone wearing that tattoo not be a willing Death Eater?"

"Have you lied in your original trial on the … about being a Death Eater?"

"Have you ever used Avada Kedavra?"

"Have you ever used Cruciatus?"

"Have you ever used Imperius?"

All five of them answered most of the questions with a yes. Some didn't use all of the Unforgivables, but all of them had used at least one of them. There were two that didn't get the question about having lied in their original trial, because they were never subjected to one. This was somewhat embarrassing as one of the two was Walden McNair, who had been employed by Amos Diggory's department.

"These answers are sufficiently covered by our code of law with a sentence of life in Azkaban. I put the question to the Wizengamot right now – are these five men guilty? Please judge according to the code of law."

All wands lit at once. There was irrefutable truth now and the Wizengamot members all had to admit the defendants were guilty.

"Their sentence will be decided after the hearings. Since we haven't had our most important answers yet they will be questioned further under Veritaserum in the same public surrounding in the following weeks. We deserve answers and we will get them."

Lady Longbottom dropped the gavel and the five were replaced by the next five. In this group was Lucius Malfoy. The procedure was repeated and all of them answered the same as the first five.

In the course of the day this was repeated with fifteen more groups of Death Eaters, mostly men, but there were a few women, too. At the end, Lady Longbottom banged the gavel and said:

"These were the preliminaries. Hearings in the coming days will be individual hearings for each of the prisoners. I'm afraid that seems to put wizarding life on hold for a while, but I hope that as many interested citizens as possible will come and attend these hearings. Put on hold what isn't essential and come to see and hear what these people have done. This is history in the making."

With that, court was adjourned and people started to leave. Amelia sat down and put her head on her table for a moment. She was drained, but she was also very satisfied. Her demonstrations had the necessary power to show to the Wizengamot what would happen if these people didn't get to see results. When she gathered her documents, and got up she felt immensely relieved that her gamble had worked. She approached Augusta and asked:

"How do you think we will have to proceed with the Wizengamot and the Minister?"

"I'm afraid we'll need a small meeting for the Wizengamot and Ministry Department Heads tomorrow before the sessions start to first determine a possible interim Minister. I don't suppose you'll want to take it?"

"I have several possible successors for the DMLE – yes, I can take it."

"Good. I'm glad you do."

"I'll brief Joanne McGovern and will propose her to become the new head of the department. The next years will demand a full-blooded lawyer more than an Auror at the head of the department, because we'll have to go over the law code. She's going to be perfect for that. Rufus is still the Chief Auror, he'll continue to do his best work in that area."

The members of the Wizengamot were called in for a special meeting for the next day before the sessions with the hearings were to start. In the evening, Amelia went to talk to her deputy, Joanne McGovern, a mother of four who were all at Hogwarts at the time. McGovern had already been kept in the know to support Amelia. At the same time, one of the best Aurors she had who was also studying the law was added to the team, Gawain Robards.

There were big headlines in the dailies of the next morning. Dumbledore wasn't overly happy, because there were a few parents who had called back their children to follow the trials, which of course took attention away from the Triwizard Tournament, but Minerva put him through his paces as to what would be more important. Every Gryffindor who was called back was allowed to go. She even allowed some of the seventh years to go who wanted to attend.

Harry was certainly one of them, but he soon noticed that while Ron had to follow the call because he was a witness he didn't want anything further to do with these procedures. The twins and Ginny, as well as his oldest brothers though were there, as they clearly understood the significance. Even Molly didn't want to miss any of the sessions. Harry had a second summoning for something he looked greatly forward to see once he read Madam Bones' explanation.

The very first session brought another immense show. To make sure that her statements were getting through everyone in the audience and the Wizengamot she had prepared a few impressive demonstrations, first and foremost she had the two wands that Pettigrew carried on him.

"Before we start on the procedures for the trials I would like to give you all a demonstration. This wand here was found on Peter Pettigrew along with his own wand. I have invited our esteemed wandmaker, Mr. Ollivander to give us some answers concerning this wand."

Ollivander was let in, took his seat and was sworn in. Amelia asked him the usual questions and then showed him the first wand.

"You have the reputation of knowing every wand you've ever sold, Mr. Ollivander. Do you recognise this one?"

The man took the wand, studied it for a moment, weighed it in his hand and stroked it, and then said:

"Yes, I certainly do. This wand was made of birch and dragon heartstring; it was sold in the summer of 1971 to young Mr. Peter Pettigrew."

"And this one?"

Amelia gave him the second wand. Ollivander took it, but almost recoiled, even though he had been forewarned.

"This wand is a very powerful wand, made of yew wood and containing one phoenix feather – it has done evil things in its life. I sold it in the summer of 1937 to a young man named Tom Marvolo Riddle."

He handed the wand back to Amelia who turned to the Wizengamot, placing herself so that she was also speaking to the audience.

"You will ask yourself – or most of you – what this has to do with our case. Ladies and gentlemen, this person, Tom Marvolo Riddle, is the person that wielded this wand with great and evil power and Peter Pettigrew acquired the wand when he witnessed the vanquishing of Lord Voldemort on Halloween night of 1981. It belonged to the person who transformed himself into Lord Voldemort. Pettigrew then again got hold of it after the homunculus Voldemort died."

The gasps throughout the hall were audible. Some people screamed and one or two persons in the room fainted dead straight.

"I do not wish to torment you, but I would like to emphasize what this wand signifies: it wielded the power over Lord Voldemort's slaves, or as they are known, the Death Eaters. Through Peter Pettigrew's intensive questioning we have learned a great deal about the mark on all the Death Eaters' wrists and one basic fact is that all the people who accepted this mark enslaved themselves to do their dark lord's bidding. Their only way out of this enslavement was through their own or Voldemort's death. You all know much of what he did but we want to show you to what extent he did it. You will become witness to all the spells that were cast with this wand. Would you kindly explain to us how we can achieve that, Mr. Ollivander?"

"Gladly, Madam Bones. This wand has a brother wand, as the phoenix who gave me that feather also gave me another one. Brother wands cannot be used against each other. If they are used to cast aggressive spells against each other they will react with an impasse of a sort – one that will lead to the regurgitation of all the spells cast from one of the two wands."

"Is this brother wand available?"

"It has been sold four years ago, in the summer of 1991."

Dumbledore gasped, knowing who the owner of the second wand was.

"You have kindly told me beforehand who it was sold to and the owner has, also very kindly, handed it to me for our demonstration. Here it is!"

Amelia pulled another wand from her pocket and then called in two Aurors. She explained to them:

"You will stand right here in the centre and cast Expelliarmus at the same time, please. As soon as the spells will be out they will meet and you'll feel like you're blocked. According to Mr. Ollivander there will be a beam of light that connects the wands. The one of you who holds Voldemort's wand will not resist in any way, while the other one will push beads of light across the connecting beams. All you have to do is will those beads into the other wand. The one who holds Voldemort's wand should accept that so it is done fast. Once they're all in there the show will really begin. All spells ever cast will show, not only the last one like we get it with our regular Prior Incantato. – I don't think you need any more advice, do you agree, Mr. Ollivander?"

"No, Madam Bones, they should be perfectly fine – just maybe one thing: do not let go of your respective wand until the very last spell is out, gentlemen."

The two Aurors nodded. Madam Bones handed Gawain the wand from Voldemort.

"You get the infamous wand, Gawain. No resistance from your end, please."

"Absolutely clear, Madam!"

"You get the other wand, Kingsley. You're to get all these beads of light over to the other wand."

"Will do, Madam."

"Okay then, face each other up closely and cast!"

Gawain Robards and Kingsley Shacklebolt took position just about a metre apart and got ready. They counted in to cast and then incanted both at the same time:

"Expelliarmus!"

The red beams hit each other and seemed to explode. Everyone in the audience was stunned as the light of the beams crisscrossed around the two Aurors, encircling them in a bright web of red light. Still it was clearly visible how the beads came up on what looked like a strong line of light. Harry, sitting between Hermione and Remus, had the strong feeling that if Voldemort would still be around he might have well seen exactly this happening to himself at some point.

Then the spells started to happen. As he didn't know what to expect Harry quickly thought of the last spells Voldemort did before he died the first time. To his horror there were a good number of spells beyond that. The homunculus that was Voldemort had cast a good few spells with this wand since Pettigrew had brought him back, even a few Unforgiveables, but then… Harry's breath hitched in his throat as the first victim became visible, an old man, clearly a Muggle who didn't really know what had happened, because he looked rather confused. Then there was a somewhat crunched up woman who simply whimpered.

And then came Lily. She looked around and everyone saw that she talked to both Aurors. People couldn't hear, but the Aurors' testimony later would give the conversation away:

"Hello, Gawain and Kingsley! So good to see you!"

Gawain almost dropped his wand. He gasped:

"Lily? Is that really you?"

"Just an imprint of me, I'm afraid. But it's an imprint of my soul, which has been imprisoned in the wand that was used to kill me – it might return to my body. I hope I haven't been cremated?"

"I don't think so… should we go and look for your grave?"

"Worth a try – here comes James!"

And so it was. The imprint of James' soul came out and cheered the two men on.

For the next hour there were spells of the most horrid sort, endless repetitions of Killing Curses and the space in the cage of light became ever more crowded with every imprint of another soul that was dropped out of the wand. Finally, the terrible spells petered out and stopped with the first person Voldemort ever murdered. The first years of his magical career were soon wrapped up with all the school spells and then the wand fell silent. All the soul imprints vanished out of the cage and were soon gone as was the cage itself. Kingsley and Gawain were both quite drained from the experience. They both asked for a Pensieve to deposit their memories of the whole scene.

On the gallery, Remus, Harry and Hermione had watched with growing horror, but of course also interested. Sirius looked up from his place in the Wizengamot and crossed glances with Remus. They watched as the two Aurors dropped their strands of memory into a big bowl. Soon the whole audience was regaled with the conversations that took place inside the cage of light. Remus turned to the children:

"I'm going to the grave. Do you want to come with me? Or would you like to stay and follow the procedures? Sirius clearly can't go away, but someone has to go and look at those graves!"

"Why? What do you think, Remus?"

"Lily said her soul would return to her body… my hearing is a lot better than yours, I've heard her."

"But that would have to be decayed, Remus!" Hermione countered.

"That remains to be seen now, Hermione. Let's get out of here quietly."

They did just that and walked quietly out of the building. Remus apparated the two children to Godric's Hollow and showed them through to the graveyard.

"This place is semi-magical. Most people who live here know about magic, but many don't. There are many grave-sites of old wizarding families here," Remus explained to them as they walked between the graves. They reached a row of graves, among which there were a few Potters. Before they even saw James and Lily's grave they heard a quiet:

"Glad, you're still such a quick thinker, Moony!"

Remus stood rooted to the spot, but then:

"James! Prongs, I can't believe it, I didn't dare to hope… this is… I can't find words!"

"I can't either and I'm dead tired, I'm not sure, how long I'll be lucid…"

"We'll get you healers immediately… Lily?"

"'m here, Remy… Harry?"

"Is here with me! Dare to sleep, dears, we'll have someone look after you soon. Just one short information: Voldemort is dead, done, out of the picture!"

Harry and Hermione watched how the two newly awakened persons looked at each other, relieved, and then simply sank to the ground and fell asleep. To make sure Remus checked for a pulse, but was relieved.

"Normal pulse for both of them. I think, I'll call Poppy to take them to Hogwarts…"

"Look!" interrupted Hermione.

All around them there were more people coming out of their graves. All of them were in perfect condition, though all of them were tired and many remembered the pain of torture and started to scream. Remus quickly sent off a Patronus information to the Aurors and St. Mungo's, then one to Poppy, who was there just minutes later. Within half an hour the place teemed with so many people that no one would have thought it to be a graveyard.

Remus watched over his friends with warming charms and waited for Poppy. When she arrived he said:

"Explanations later, they need the hospital wing, Poppy!"

"Good. You take James and one of the kids, I take the others and we go to the Three Broomsticks, from where we can Floo."

"Okay, we do that."

After a whirlwind apparition they were welcomed by Madam Rosmerta, who opened them the Floo. Poppy sent Harry and Hermione through first, then Remus with James and she herself took Lily. She put them down, checked pulse and other vital signs and said:

"Apart from their obvious tiredness everything is okay. I think Lily might actually be pregnant, but she is fine. That means I'll go back and see what I can do to help. You may stay with them."

"Wow…" said Harry.

Poppy was gone in a moment and left them with the two young people who would find themselves transported almost fourteen years ahead. Remus sat next to James, Harry took a seat between his parents and Hermione took a chair next to Lily.

"Wow…" Harry repeated.

"James is going to blow a fuse when he learns that the Jumper is pregnant again," Remus said and grinned.

"The Jumper?" asked Harry.

"We never told you that your Mum was an Animagus as well, did we? She's a pigmy goat. Black, white and red coloured. Watch out for her little, but vicious horns!"

Remus was completely changed. He'd already found happiness again when Sirius was given back to him, but now – Harry thought it had brightened up his former professor beyond recognition.

They didn't have more than an hour of peaceful reminiscence before the door of the hospital wing opened and Aurors and mediwitches and –wizards brought in more patients out of the graveyards. Poppy had space for thirty people in all in her ward and decided to fill it. She quietly set to assign patients to healers and took on her own group of people to examine for anything beyond the residue of the Killing Curse. Harry looked on as interestedly as Hermione and finally had an idea:

"Hey, do you know what, Hermione? I'm going to be able to say goodbye to the horrible moniker! I'm not the only one to survive a Killing Curse anymore! This is great!"

Remus and Hermione both laughed. They were all giddy seeing these people coming back to life. It would be chaos at the Ministry in the next few weeks, especially since there wasn't a Minister around anymore.

"Hopefully they will make Madam Bones the new Minister straight away! She would be really good," said Hermione.

One of the patients that was treated by Poppy and who was very close by, asked:

"Amy? Amy is going to be Minister? Great!"

The teens turned around, but Poppy stopped the man:

"Richard Bones! You've just come out of your grave, you're not going to make jokes about your sister again!"

"Yes, Madam Pomfrey…" he replied, falling back into the same pattern that all former Hogwarts students showed when they were around the old school healer.

"Have you seen Rebecca?" he asked, notwithstanding.

"Yes, she's over there, dear. And she'll be fine as well."

The noise woke up James and Lily again. They both took in the full ward and James grinned.

"Moony, that looks like a feast here!"

"It does. I don't know where to start looking!"

"Harry?" asked Lily, looking around until she saw the James look-alike with her own eyes.

"I'm here, Mum," Harry said, completely excited to call someone that for the first time in his conscious life.

"Come here, sweetie, I want to make sure you're fine!"

"Mum! I'm completely fine. Really! I just got you back, I just don't know what to say and think yet. Sirius had to stay back at the Wizengamot, he'll be out of himself tonight! Remus has told him over the mirror."

Harry started to babble, which both, Lily and Hermione found totally endearing. Poppy had called in the help of a few house-elves to bring the best food for the newly arrived patients.

"We need a very, very light broth for all of them as we don't know how they will react to food yet. After that be on standby to prepare more solid foods."

"Yes, Madam Poppy, we'll be right back."

When most of the people seemed to be treated and awake, Poppy asked Remus:

"Remus, you seem to know most – would you kindly explain to us where all these not dead anymore people are coming from?"

"I suspect there will be many more when they go through all these other wands they have collected from the Death Eaters. – Here comes the whole sordid story if you care to listen to it!"

Remus, in full professor mode, started with the death of James and Lily, told them about Harry surviving and then jumped to the latest developments, giving an account of some of Harry's adventures and about Sirius and Pettigrew and finally got to the demonstration in the morning.

"So, I thought it best to get a head-start and took Harry and Hermione to the graveyard – just in time!"

"And You-Know-Who?"

"That's Harry's story to tell – you're going to love it!" said Remus with a wide grin and pushed Harry out to tell it.

Harry did. And talked about how he had refused to take part in such a hare-brained thing as that tournament. He was in the midst of his rant about not taking part when Dumbledore entered the hospital wing. Harry then said:

"I was told I would lose my magic if I didn't take part, which took my breath away at first, but then I had just spoken that oath, so I would hardly break that. I said I didn't believe it and wanted to know when I would have lost my magic, right then, before that first task, or after it, whatever. I speculated that whoever wrote that note had left their essence in the Goblet of Fire and they might be the ones to lose their magic. We then went to watch that task, which was just over two weeks ago. When I walked back to school I used a levitation charm and my magic was as intact as ever. What I didn't know was that I was right about the fact that the person who had written the slip would lose their magic. A few days later we had the good idea to ask a house-elf if he could find Peter Pettigrew for us and he did. Brought him to us in his rat form. Pettigrew, for all of you who don't know, and that would probably be most of you, was an Animagus and his form is that of a garden rat. Anyway, we thought it a good idea to get him to the Ministry. My friend Neville Longbottom knew the head of the DMLE, Madam Bones, so we asked to see her and were brought in to her. During his initial questioning Pettigrew told us that he had found the spirit of Voldemort, who had possessed all sorts of small animals in the denser forests in Albania. He had been told how to do it and created a very ugly baby-like body for Voldemort. I've seen it all in a vision in summer. So, when I didn't lose my magic the question was, who wrote the slip and who might have lost it? Guess what – it was the homunculus Voldemort! How do I know? Again, through Pettigrew. We found out that he had left the body of Voldemort behind, but had of course grabbed the wand again! Voldemort had lost his magic on the day of the first task. Since he didn't turn up to take part the Goblet cashed in Voldemort's magic. KACHING! Since he was nothing but a construct of magic that thing couldn't exist without it and died immediately. He's completely and utterly gone now. Whatever he did to survive his own rebounded Killing Curse on me has gone missing or awry, in any case he is really dead now."

That got some cheering and lots of applause. Everyone was eating their first meal back alive and Poppy observed how they were taking it in. She cast more diagnostic spells, as did the other healers and they were all satisfied. Poppy checked on Lily for her possible pregnancy and was able to confirm:

"I hope that this is good news for you, Mrs Potter, but you are about six weeks pregnant and your foetus is alive again as well."

"I had suspected, but… do you think it's healthy, Madam Pomfrey?"

"I suppose if it weren't it wouldn't have survived. Let's give it two to three weeks more and see if it develops. Otherwise you might notice a natural abort."

Lily nodded and looked over to James, who had listened. His happy face and very cocky grin told her all she needed to know. She said:

"That'll be the record for the longest human gestation period ever. Fourteen years…"

This cracked everyone around up, but then Poppy intervened:

"Afraid Mrs Bones there has you beaten, Mrs Potter. She's been dead a little longer…"

"Rebecca? She's pregnant, too?" Lily asked, looking around.

Rebecca Bones had moved over to her husband and took his hand. She nodded and confirmed:

"I knew I was pregnant. Everything still seems to be okay. I'm about a month longer than you, Lily."

"That's great!"

Now that everyone was given the first care Poppy opened the doors for the visitors that were already waiting outside. Dumbledore made himself known now, but wasn't really allowed to say much. He'd listened to Harry's story and was glad that the boy hadn't known about the Horcruxes, but his scar had almost vanished, Dumbledore was sure that was the last they had seen of Voldemort.

After more extended periods of sleep, James and Lily were woken by the voice of their other best friend, who could hardly contain himself of happiness. Sirius had found his way up to Hogwarts and was on verge of transforming so he could wag his tail like crazy as Padfoot. He almost throttled James and Lily, but then he broke down, crying. It was almost too much for him. He had only just begun to grieve normally for his friends and now they turned up again – alive!

They were not the only ones who happily reunited. Amelia had been informed about her younger brother and sister-in-law and came together with Sirius. Susan was already there and like Harry, she met her parents for the first time in her life. The oldest Bones sibling, Edgar, was missing. Amelia knew that he had been killed by a Death Eater together with his wife Beatrice and their four children. The youngest child had been only three.

"I'm determined to have all wands checked in the way we demonstrated this morning. Not in my wildest dreams would I have expected anything like this! All I wanted was to show Voldemort's horrible spells."

"Talk about an unexpected surprise…" said Sirius.

He stood arm in arm with Remus. They couldn't stop beaming. Then a house-elf popped in with a note for Sirius. He picked it up and read it. He paled and looked up at Remus, shocked.

"One of the victims was Reg, Remus! He's at St. Mungo's."

"Are you going to see him?"

"I should – he was killed because he tried to get out. I want to know what he has to say."

"Then you should go right away."

Sirius sighed – he wanted to stay with his friends, but he had to go and look after his younger brother. He left and found his way to the hospital. The nurse at the reception sent him to the floor where all the victims of the Killing Curse had been taken. The healer informed Sirius that his brother was fine apart from the fact that he also had been tortured before Voldemort caught him with the Avada Kedavra.

"Residues?"

"Of the Cruciatus? None. He must have suffered, but he seems fine now. Once he recognised that there was no pain anymore, only in his head he recovered fast. He needs to be fed, but slowly and then this potion should be brewed or bought. I've got the recipe here."

Sirius was relieved. He found the room where Regulus lay and found that he was already awake again. He smiled.

"Hey Reg!" he called in a low voice.

Regulus looked up, a bit fearful of his brother's possible scathing comments, but Sirius – heck, he looked SO much older!

"Fifteen years, Reg. Voldemort is gone now. The Death Eaters are finally getting their trials and will be stashed away for the rest of most of their lives…"

"I'm one, Siri."

"But you wanted out, didn't you?"

Regulus nodded and was tempted to look away. But he felt his brother's warm grey eyes upon him and looked up into a smiling face. Sirius hugged his brother.

"That's enough for me, Reg. You missed most of your last year of school. Want to start new in Hogwarts and do your last year again?"

"I could do, couldn't I? But Siri, he's done something that he wouldn't die…"

Sirius shushed the young man.

"We know. But he's lost his magic and once his magic was gone he was done for. Too much magic that held his construct together and with the magic gone from his body he fell together like a house of cards. He really is gone, in spite of his Horcruxes," Sirius explained quietly.

"Ah! Good! You need to tell Kreacher that he's not bound to my order then and that he can stop trying to destroy the one that's in Grimmauld Place, in case he hadn't managed until now."

Sirius was almost rendered speechless.

"There's one in Grimmauld…?" he asked, flabbergasted.

"That's why it was Voldemort himself who offed me, Sirius. He gave one to Bella and another to Lucius…"

"You'll have to tell me what you know, but later on. I think it would be best to take you to Grand-Mama to Gloucester, she'll be so happy to know you're back! Rest assured, that none of the Horcruxes can be still active. Once he lost his magic they all went up in smoke."


	3. 3 To Reshape a School

**A/N:** Another chapter of this light-hearted fic...

And I wonder if anyone can point me to a story: Harry and friends spend summers in a special trunk in the room of requirements. For the life of me I can neither remember the title of this excellent story nor the author. Any help to point my nose would be welcome!

**Chapter 3 – To Reshape a School**

Two days later, most of the newly resurrected people were able to leave the hospital. They were swiftly replaced with more people, as Amelia had kept all the wands of the Death Eaters behind and, once brother wands were found the Aurors went through the Priori Incantatem spell again.

It was, of course, chaos. So many people had to be reintegrated into the society! They had to find their places again. To avoid problems with families, where money had to be returned from the inheritances, the new Minister, Amelia Bones, suggested that there would be a collection from the public, like a temporary tax, which would be used to re-establish all the people who had come back. Many people added to this tax, which was put into a special foundation, from which those who hadn't enough resources were then subsidized. The Ministry also called onto the help of the public, hiring a lot of people to help within the Ministry and Saint Mungo's. The response was massive, most people actually volunteered, but were given a little gift in any case for their help.

The Death Eaters were mostly sentenced to the Dementors' Kiss and then put through the Veil of Death in the Ministry. The rest of the magical world was sick of them reigning supreme over the society after they learned more about what they all had done. It had been like a great catharsis for most of the people, even some of the more conservative families were glad to see the back of them.

At Hogwarts, Dumbledore was fired to retirement by the reconvened School governors, among which were a few more progressives, even before the Yule celebrations were to start. Minerva McGonagall had put them up to it, because she had seen a few things she thought were not conducive to a healthy future of the school and the students as long as the old man was still in charge. She was promoted to headmistress and she immediately hired Sirius and James to co-teach Transfigurations. Both were prodigies in the subject, which would be good for the students. Both were young and could get along with the students just fine. She took them on in her classes for a few weeks and by the time she had moved into Dumbledore's now renovated quarters, they had found their footing and happily taught class. Of course, being Marauders meant that there was quite a bit of harmless fun with the odd prank here or there. They lifted everyone's spirits and there was quite a bit more laughter around the school and a lot less sneering.

Sirius took Regulus to Gloucestershire, where Melania was over the moon to have her second grandson back as well. She immediately asked her daughter, Andromeda and her family and the Potters to come visit them. A family meeting was then held, during which much was discussed and planned. James had to go to Gringotts, where he got his family insignia to reopen the old country estate. It was in the mountains near Caerphilly, not too far from the Gloucestershire home of the Blacks. James called the Grangers, asked them for permission, then fetched Harry and Hermione from Hogwarts to introduce them to the old family home. It wasn't exactly in disrepair, but the old spells that held it up were starting to fail. James quickly went over them to save his home. He smiled. As much as he missed his parents, he still loved the big house and the large woodland and park around it. Harry and Hermione were suitably impressed. They looked around the entrance hall and Harry remarked:

"That alone is as large as the Dursleys' entire ground floor…"

"We're going to need the help of some house-elves to get this up to speed," said James and sighed.

Harry didn't need to stop Hermione anymore; she could see where James was coming from; this house wouldn't keep itself. Harry grinned and told his dad:

"I can help you with one of them at least, Dad!"

"What?"

"Dobby!"

A little popping crack brought Dobby in. Harry introduced him to his parents:

"Here's my housewarming gift to you, Mum and Dad. Dobby used to be the Malfoy's house-elf, but I helped free him and now he wants to be with me – well, I'm sure it would be US, wouldn't it, Dobby?"

"Master has his family back! Dobby is so very pleased. Is this Harry Potter's house?"

"It's my mum and dad's house, Dobby. Would you mind calling Winky, who you said is also at Hogwarts and wants a family? There's easily enough work for the two of you, don't you think?"

"Dobby likes how Master Harry's mind works. I is bringing Winky, but Winky might be a little drunk. She's been having too much butterbeer. Is pining for her old master…"

"But he was cruel to her and he sacked her for no reason!" Hermione exclaimed.

"Winky does know that but is deep within her. Her family has been in the Crouch's service for generations, and now is difficult not to be anymore."

"Well, there are no Crouches left now, are there?" Hermione said with a certain bite.

"Bring her here anyway, Dobby, if she has been in the Crouch family, she's bound to be a very good elf!" said James.

Dobby smiled at him thankfully and vanished, returning only minutes later with a frail looking little elf, who looked really sad. At this time she wasn't exactly drunk, so she could be talked to and James and Lily asked her:

"Hello, Winky, it's nice to meet you! We are James and Lily Potter and we're Harry's parents. We would need a good house-elf to bring our home up to speed again and we heard you would want a new family to serve. Would you like to come to us as our house-elf?"

"Winky wants to but is not deserving! Winky is disgraced elf, would Master and Mistress really want a disgraced elf?"

"From what little I've just heard you've been given clothes even though you did everything right; therefore, you are certainly not a disgraced elf, not in our eyes and not in the eyes of those who you'll meet in this house either, Winky. Yes, we would very much like you as our house-elf. Dobby is already Harry's elf, but the two of you would both work here. Do you wish to come into our service? No butterbeer for you anymore though, if it does you so badly!"

"Winky would very much like to enter into service with the Potter family. No butterbeer anymore."

James was really pleased and engaged Winky on the spot. Since she wasn't in any active bond, he was happy not to have to go out and buy an elf. Lily wasn't too fond of that idea either, but even with magic they would have a really hard time to keep the house in good order without some help. Both did not like to think about 'buying' a living, sentient being. Finding two free elves who willingly entered in the service for the Potter family was an outstanding bit of luck.

"Okay, you two, now go and look for some nice rooms for the two of you. There are a lot of little rooms up on the top floor. I order you to pick one for each for you and it must have a window and you have to make it nice and homely, however you need and want it. Then you go and get some fabric and make yourselves something nice for clothes to wear. I won't see either of you in tea cosies or pillowcases. You will wear proper clothes. Is that clear?" asked Lily.

"Yes, Mistress."

Then Harry and Hermione asked if they could put in some ideas about standing orders:

"Mum, Dad, could we give them the order never to punish themselves? Especially Dobby has been used to do that, I don't know about Winky, but I wouldn't want to see them punish themselves for every little bit they regard as a mistake."

"That's an excellent idea, Harry," replied James.

He immediately passed on that order to Winky and a further standing order to them both was that they were to eat with the family. Hermione beamed when she saw that both elves accepted, though both still with a bit of reluctance. They were both used to 'not be seen'.

The formalities done, the young ones in the family were made familiar with the house. Harry and Hermione were also asked to find a room they liked. James showed them where he and Sirius used to live. It was an upper floor in one of the two wings of the house, where there were four bedrooms in a row with two bathrooms between them. Harry told Hermione to choose the corner bedroom, while he would take the next.

"Splendid. We'll have this completely renovated in the next weeks, so we can come back at Christmas to spend some time together here…" said James.

"Can I invite Neville, too?" asked Harry.

"Of course, if he wants to come… I'm his godmother, and I'll take contact with Neville's gran, to ask if they will come and stay with us for a few days."

Before they returned to Hogwarts, they chose the rooms for James and Lily as well as one for Remus and Sirius. The Potters chose the master bedroom and would have a whole suite with a nursery as well. Remus and Sirius took the room that was directly above the master suite. Their room also had a bathroom attached and that was a Jack and Jill bathroom leading to another nice room, which they would use as a private living room.

With Sirius, Remus also returned to the school. They were together again and deliriously happy. Remus soon found things to do, mostly in the library, but Minerva offered him the job of a History teacher. He started with a few classes, just to see if the students accepted him, but it didn't take long until he had much more to do, because students who looked in at the beginning soon noticed that this was now a fun and really informative class. Soon, not one student sat in Binns' class anymore, they much rather learned from Remus. Most of them had already liked him as a teacher before. Even the Slytherins checked that this was history taught as it should be.

Interestingly enough not one student complained anywhere that he was a werewolf. He put the information on his classroom door, when he was out due to the full moon and that was that. The faculty decided that his classes didn't need to be covered by a substitute teacher.

As he was always well organised, Remus noted down meticulously what he had taught. Minerva simply passed copies of these notes to the examination authority where the history OWLS and NEWTS were newly established according to the subjects that had come up. With time Remus produced a whole new book, which was then published and sold through Flourish and Blotts. Until then he made lesson plans up as he liked, covering wizarding history and also a lot of Muggle history, things that often ran parallel.

He wanted to coordinate with the Muggle studies teacher, but soon had to learn that the woman who taught the subject really had no idea about that side of the world. By the end of the school year she would be out of her job, and Minerva started to look for a Muggle-born teacher, preferably one that still lived in the Muggle world. She had quite a few applicants out of which she chose a former Ravenclaw, one Quentin Smith, who was just about ten years older than the Marauders, but turned out to be rather similar minded.

Sirius and James had split their classes. Sirius took the Gryffindors, and because he got their favourite house, he also took the Slytherins. James took over the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw classes. They had it fairly easy, because they could work from the meticulous lesson plans Minerva had kept. But they both set up more fun parts in their lessons, going more into the intuitive workings of Transfiguration.

But before all that they had just settled in, Lily moving in with James, of course, and taking the opportunity to work closely with Filius Flitwick to deepen her knowledge of Charms, they met the students, and among the students – their now fourteen years old son.

It was moving to see how the child took to his parents. It was all he had ever wished for, he got it and he couldn't be happier. In this family's case the parents were well off, because they were reinstated also by the Goblins to be the owners of their family's vaults. Harry was still a minor, which meant his parents could simply take their own family vaults back, while he still had his school vault, where James and Lily kept filling up a certain sum of money every year. Harry saw more than enough in that amount. He was filled with wonder learning that he would have a sibling at around his own birthday's time.

Of course, him being Harry and as he had been socialised by the Dursleys it took him some time to get closer to his parents physically. He learned quickly that he didn't need to apologise for every little thing. But they also learned, seldom directly, but through his mannerisms, his often trembling voice and the anxieties they could clearly see and feel, that they would have a long path ahead of them to get close to their son. On the other hand, there was Hermione, who helped a lot with that. She was unafraid to voice her interest, once it was clear to her that it was there on his part. Hermione and Lily talked a lot and Lily had recommended that Hermione should take the lead in her relationship with him, at least until Harry had caught up. As it would be shown, Harry could be a very fast learner.

The first classes with Sirius alone were great fun for the Gryffindors. The Slytherins entered the classroom with much more trepidation. Sirius was well known for not exactly liking Slytherins. But he soon made it very clear that he didn't have bias when he taught class. On the other hand, when Malfoy tried to bring out his worst sides, Sirius cut him down right away. But Malfoy being Malfoy didn't back down. He was therefore subjected to numerous detentions with Filch and Hagrid and lost more points than the Slytherins could rack up. Snape was absolutely livid, but Sirius was able to prove every single case as rightful punishment. Snape pulled Sirius in front of Minerva, but he landed flat on his face. Minerva, who already had cut his ability to give or deduct points and who had cut back numerous point deductions was at the end of her tether with Snape. She cut right to the centre of the problem:

"Severus, if you cannot grow up and if you can't be peaceful like the rest of us are, then why do you insist on staying around? I've had countless complaints even from many Slytherins about you lately! You are hindering, not helping. You are bullying, not teaching. You are ruining children's lives without even giving shit about the kind of damage you do to them and to society. You do not belong into any school room."

"I have a contract and I do what's in my contract."

"You may have a contract, but it's the same as everyone else has. You do not what's in your contract. For that alone I can sack you. You have a student who cannot behave in any class and you still try to protect him? This doesn't teach the student a lesson nor does it help him. It's not Sirius' fault that Draco Malfoy doesn't learn the lesson he's taught. If the two of you cannot play by the rules then I'll have to have the two of you removed. You both have one month to redeem yourself. Any relapse into current behaviour will have you sacked, and Malfoy expelled, Severus. Is that clear?"

"I should have known you would take Black's side. That's favouritism right there."

Minerva's reply came quick and with an ice cold voice:

"YOU dare talking to me about favouritism? Should I collect all the points you've given Slytherin and taken from the other three houses since you started here? Would I not see blatant favouritism right there and fourteen years of breeding new Death Eaters? You will not 'teach' one class more! And again, talking about favouritism, haven't you noticed that the Slytherins get as many points as the other houses in Sirius' class? The only one who has ever shown blatant favouritism is you. Get out of my office, Severus Snape and think about what you just said. I am taking that decision back to give you another month. Consider your contract terminated. I'll have the confirmation from the School governors in the next days. Enough is enough!"

All of this was said in a low voice with cold rage and years of having had her inputs declined by Dumbledore, who had allowed Snape free reign. She was not having a moment more of it. Minerva even asked Hogwarts to supervise Snape in all his moves and to hinder him should he put one toe out of line.

Sirius was in awe of his boss. She had given James the headship of Gryffindor house and she was still discussing the Deputy position with the teachers. Sirius had quietly told her that Remus would be perfect for the job.

The morning after saw another change. At breakfast, Minerva stood up and informed the school:

"Students, this is an announcement that for the time being you are exempt from Potions lessons. Severus Snape's working contract has been rescinded last night and we are awaiting the decision of the School governors later today to confirm my decision. I am sorry for yet another disruption of your school year. We hope to have gone through all the possible storms now. A new Potions teacher will be found. I already have a substitute in mind until a new one can be appointed."

Snape hadn't shown up for breakfast and he didn't turn up for any other meal. Minerva didn't mind and she had the reply from the School governors the very next day. It was a 10:2 decision to hold up her termination on Snape's contract. The Governors added a condition to the termination in forbidding Snape to ever enter the school grounds again. He was not allowed closer to Hogwarts than 100 miles. Minerva alerted Amelia that Snape was now hers to prosecute if she wished to do so. She was still fuming about the accusation of favouritism. No one had been stricter with her Gryffindors than she had been herself. She was especially happy with the way Sirius, Remus and James gave points to every house and how few they had to deduct. Even most of the Slytherins made lots of points with them, which had given many of them some of their good faith in the fairness of the teachers back.

Once Snape was gone, Minerva asked Lily to substitute for a few months. Lily loved Potions and was great at it, but she held no mastery. Nevertheless, she introduced herself and a brand new classroom on the ground floor of Hogwarts a week later and took the students by storm. Naturally gifted and with a sometimes very dark wit and dry humour she taught them the potions that were in the lesson plan as well as some she thought would be good for them to know and fun to learn. She quietly dropped a few of the less useful potions from the plan. Being as meticulous as Remus in her notes, she made a list of the potions she taught and gave it to Minerva to the hands of the Wizarding Examination Authority.

The first time she had Harry's class was on Friday of that week. By then Harry had already heard from many sides, how much the students liked his mother as a teacher. It was no wonder, as she had introduced herself to the older students with a fun potion that gave many of them the giggles, when they were allowed to try it on each other. The little ones had mostly been treated to a good basic lesson of how best to handle all their equipment.

Harry's class of Slytherins and Gryffindors were treated to another special potion. As this was unexpected, the Slytherins knew as little about it as the Gryffindors. Lily put the list of ingredients on the board, but contrary to Snape she didn't just order them to brew, she went through the individual ingredients and gave advice on some of the brewing steps and what to look out for. When the class then collected the ingredients and started to brew, she watched how they proceeded. The collection of ingredients was rather a chaos, so she noted down the first change in these classes. She held the students who already had their ingredients back until all students were back from the stores, so they all started at the same time.

"In future, the ingredients will be handed out by one student per ingredient, that will make this much quicker. They will go in and collect the ingredients, then hand them out to the students," Lily announced.

As the students began to prepare their ingredients, she interfered a few times, giving advice on how exactly to use their knives on some of them, or how better to shred. She noticed that the Slytherins were much more adept at this.

"Oh Sev, what have you done?" she murmured, not for the first time this week.

She helped where necessary. It was nice to see that the Gryffindors took to learning fast, once they were taught correctly. Towards the end of the double lesson, as she walked through the class, she could see that there was hardly a difference between the potions, they all looked well done.

"I'll grade the classwork, if you like. Please leave a sample in the big basket at the entrance, labelled as usual. For homework I would like you to read up on these five ingredients on the board. I will quiz you at the beginning of the next class."

At the end of the week, she reported to Minerva:

"It is absolutely appalling to see what Snivellous has done to these students, Minerva. Most of them did extremely sloppy work in cutting, slicing, cubing or otherwise treating their ingredients. Hardly any of them knew how to properly shred ingredients. They didn't know how to introduce ingredients safely. That is – all the houses except for the Slytherins. They were still half decent at it. Gryffindors, Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs are terrified in that class, it took me quite a while to get them to believe I wouldn't breathe down their necks and making fun of their mistakes. There were a few noticeable exceptions, the Weasley twins, Hermione, a few Ravenclaws, a few Hufflepuffs. But the rest – including my own son, I have to say – are simply traumatised after years of that treatment."

Minerva sighed. She noticed the use of the hated nickname of Snape's, which Lily had usually strongly disliked. But one week of classes had been enough to learn that her erstwhile friend must have lost the plot completely.

"That's what I feared. I wasn't allowed to reign him in and he did what he wanted. Dumbledore never stopped him. He thought it *healthy* that the students aren't pampered. HEALTHY! I'm so glad that this episode is over. Hopefully we can still catch the students up."

"A new teacher will have to be very considerate for these traumas. Not everyone has the nerves of Fred and George Weasley, or the stoicism of Hermione Granger. There's a third year Ravenclaw, Luna Lovegood, who seems to be very isolated, by the way. Can you have Filius look into that a bit closer? I've heard extremely biting remarks towards her. She's a lovely girl, but a bit different than others and they seem to pick on her."

"Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I wish I could engage you, but we do need another Slytherin teacher on board."

"Why not ask Rebecca Bones? She was a potions mistress AND she was in Slytherin. I know, she's pregnant, too, but I think we might substitute each other or share the work for a while, so that we can look after our little ones… in the Muggle world that's called job-sharing, effectively what Jamie and Siri are doing, too."

"You are brilliant, Lily! I never thought of that! She was brilliant, as you say, and she has a very good sense of humour. Maybe all the students who have begun to shun those lessons recently will be brought back in! Did you say the Weasley twins turned up in yours?"

"Yes, they did. Lovely boys, both of them, very charming and they seemed to have great fun brewing that potion I asked them to."

"I'm asking, because I doubt they saw the Potions class room from the inside for at least a year. They're fantastic in everything practical, in Transfigurations, too, but unfortunately very sloppy in their theory work. Gives them not so good marks, but they are very gifted boys, I'll admit to that."

Lily smiled. She told Minerva, that maybe James would be able to pick them up for their remaining two school years.

"It takes one to see one and the first time they heard Sirius, Remus and James use one of their nicknames they almost sank to their knees in adulation. They will pick up a lot from my three boys. Pranks may go up a bit, I'm afraid, but so long as it's good fun and not malicious I wouldn't mind."

Minerva smiled, too. As much as she had to punish the Marauders for their misbehaviour, they had been good students. The Weasley twins would be good students, but their main talents lay in their practical skills. They were, much like Sirius, sheer natural forces. The two had their practical talents and they knew very well how to make use of that talent. Lily went on:

"James has decided to get to know the Gryffindors a bit better, so he spends the odd evenings in the common room and he learned from them that they would like to open a joke shop after school. He's recommended for them to learn about shop-keeping then and all there is to know about book-keeping and so on. I think they have caught on. He'll look for the learning material for them."

"Excellent."

"And – if you don't mind – I'd like to speak to my classes about Sev. I knew him better than most people did. Before he changed, that is. He always thought he loved me, but I know he didn't, not really. He loved the tiny Lily he could impress, but wouldn't accept my free spirit when I grew up, something that Jamie does perfectly. So I can really let them know what happened with him and why he was a bad teacher. The Slytherins need to know that as well as the other ones. Once they understand that he is a half-blood and that he, a Slytherin and I, a Muggle-born, were friends they might come around. I can also say that most of the Slytherins I taught in the last week were fine young people. I heard no really horrid things, apart from a very few."

"I'm glad to hear that. I hope, Rebecca will want to come teach, they would certainly respect her."

The organisation for the Yule Ball was undertaken by all the young people, who could already count on some preliminary organisation through Bagman's department. It had already been announced to the school a week after the first task. But now, two weeks before the event, emotions were running fairly high in the school. There were last minute attempts to find a dancing partner by some boys who had dilly-dallied. One of them was Ron, who was now bad-mouthing Harry, because Harry had asked Hermione early on, but neither had answered his questions with whom they would be going. In the time since the first task and Yule, the two had been mostly recognised as a new couple and some money was exchanged from the twins' pool. There weren't many people in the school who weren't happy for the two, but Ron certainly was among them. James and Lily certainly liked their son's new girlfriend.

Ron was definitely one of the losers of the developments. He stubbornly stuck to his idea that Harry was a cheat and he tried to tell everyone what a lousy friend Harry was. His bad luck was that the days when Harry could be bad-mouthed seemed to lie in the past, because the only ones who would still do that were Malfoy and his cronies. Ron was also jealous of the praise Harry, Neville and Hermione had received for bringing Pettigrew to the Ministry. And worst of all he was absolutely livid that Hermione wouldn't even look at his homework anymore, let alone practically doing it for him. His marks had gone down drastically, even in the four months since they had come back to school. Ron was now the worst Gryffindor student and one of the worst students in the school, just above the two Slytherin bullies, who had more or less been carried with by Snape.

Minerva would have liked to open the Yule ball to a wider public, but the Great Hall already went almost overboard with all the students and the guests and keeping the dancing area free. But she was very happy with the welcoming decoration, the beautifully set up round tables and the dais, on which the bands would play. A guest performance of the Weird Sisters was expected, which would please everyone, as the band had been a success since the late 60s. On the other hand she mused that she could possibly go on having regular dance opportunities for the students.

In any case, as soon as they had come on the plan, Sirius and Remus offered dancing lessons for the students who didn't know one dance step from another. On the two Saturdays before the ball they cleared the Great Hall of the tables and benches, set up a speaker system to play music from a record player. In no time the Hall was full of interested students, Harry, Hermione, Neville and Luna were among them, taking the opportunity to get a bit more familiar with each other. Remus had dug in the big box of old vinyl records he still had, his own and the whole collection from Lily and James, and even some of his mother's, which were more the classic ballroom dance music from the 40s and 50s. To these they taught the formal steps, but the last three or four numbers they switched to all the rock music from the 70s, to which the Marauder generation had grown up. Thus, the students – and some attending teachers – could dance freely and become accustomed to being on the dance floor.

Fred and George, who had asked Angelina and Alicia to the ball, were there as well. All four of them were completely uninhibited, they danced around with as much aplomb they used on everything else they did. Both girls being tomboys happily played along with them. They came out fully to all things Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, the disco music from the late 70s. Remus then put on a live version of Dire Straits' 'Sultans of Swing' and set the Hall alight.

After the first time there were even more students who came to learn. While there were mostly those who already had a partner on the first Saturday, it became known that the two were really cool teachers and that they learned loads. Sirius and Remus had always loved to dance and were quite accomplished ballroom dancers. Their best dance was a quick step, of which they gave a demonstration that had many of the students, mostly girls, giggle with excitement. Even Sirius, after all these years of doing absolutely nothing physical, soon found his steps again. It looked as if they flew around the Hall. Minerva was there as well as most of the other teachers and everyone smiled, remembering the two from almost twenty years ago, when they had first started going out and dancing together.

The two enjoyed these lessons immensely. They taught the students the basic steps for waltz, foxtrot, tango and cha-cha-cha, then had them exercise these until they could do it easily. One Hufflepuff student was so enamoured that she went to ask McGonagall if these dancing lessons couldn't be continued after the Christmas break. She promised to ask the two men, since they were doing this on their own volition.

She did so and Sirius and Remus agreed to chaperone an informal dancing night every two weeks on Friday evening. They would set it up the same way, about an hour of formal dancing lessons and then free dancing until midnight. This would then be for all years.

It was one of these things that Minerva was mulling around when she thought about the future of the school. She was aware that Hogwarts had stagnated under the last three or four headpersons. Luckily, it was one of her oldest and best friends who was responsible at the Ministry. Elizabeth Montgomery headed the small but fine Department of Education at the Ministry, which was responsible for all things education in the magical world, from the school system to the Wizarding Examination Authority to the apprenticing system. Masteries were gained from apprenticeships with masters, but the Master title was handed over after theoretical and practical examinations through the WEA.

And when Minerva came to speak to her old pal, she found open ears. Elizabeth confined in her, that she had been battling Dumbledore for far too long on several issues. She was all for modernisation.

"What would you suggest, Minerva?"

"I'd like a transition year that starts after New Year's Day and lasts until exams the year after. For the students it would mean an extra year, but then we'd have ample time to work on the lesson plans as they exist for the time being. I'd like to introduce new core subjects, condensing existent subjects, especially Charms and Transfiguration, where I notice we could move a lot faster, to make room for the extra subjects. In these core magical subjects we could also let go a bit on the theory to much more practical. We do have a subject of magical theory after all. That's where all the in-depth theory of Charms and Transfiguration could go in. One period more of this per week and that's enough, I'd think. We're losing far too much time on essays and such things, where quizzes would help the students to absorb the theory much better, so reduction of written work outside of classes and maybe two a month per core subjects would do. But I would like more formal language classes for English, Latin, French and German. These would be giving students enough opportunity to hone their writing skills. And I would like more space for social activities and maybe some more magical classes as well. That transition year could give us chances to find out if there is interest, I thought of inviting guest lecturers on several subjects, which could be offered on a course basis that maybe only consists of an age-adequate module? Certainly not things that will need exams, like some basic household and healing?"

"Wow. Sweetheart, you've arrived in the late 20th century, congratulations. AND you have a few very, very smart ideas. If you don't mind I'd like to take this up with Amelia. She's going to start a few new things in the new year as well, apparently whispered to her by Arthur Weasley, who seems to know a bit more about the Muggle world than the rest of us after all…"

Minerva laughed.

"If not for his house dragon I'd think he's quite the patented man," she said.

"Oh, let me tell you that the people who underestimate Arthur Weasley in this house are rather numerous. They are all on the wrong though. As for your transition year, I think that should be doable, I'll take it to the School governors for you, if you want me to."

"That would be nice! We'll work the details out later."

"I think it's a brilliant idea."

O

Meanwhile things were running quite well at the Ministry. Amelia was appointed by the full Wizengamot and by all Department Heads a day after the first hearing. She was introduced to the wizarding public immediately as the new Minister of Magic. She took office the very next day, much to the displeasure of the Senior Undersecretary, Dolores Jane Umbridge, who had turned up again, livid about the change of personnel at the top.

Umbridge absolutely hated Amelia Bones. Amelia represented everything Umbridge wanted and couldn't ever have or be. She was intelligent, rich, well-positioned, perfect pure-blood family record, fairly wealthy, well-liked by everyone. She had strength of character and she was very, very light and fair. Amelia couldn't stand Umbridge either and she was now in a position where she would be able to overpower the person that had terrorised half the Ministry for a few years already.

Tensions rose right on the first day. When Amelia arrived in the morning to take over her new office, she summoned the team through the assistant and once they were assembled, she questioned them on their jobs to find out what she needed in terms of staff. Right from the start Umbridge was renitent and rude. Gone was the simpering tone she had for Fudge. She even went as far as blaming Amelia for his death.

"I know that you were around just before he died. Whatever you did killed him. I'm going to prove you're his murderer!" she hissed.

"My dear Dolores," Amelia said sweetly. "You can watch my memories of the whole encounter with Fudge before he's offed himself. Of course, I've told him some very uncomfortable truths. There was no need to take that form of exit, but who knows, maybe there was a lot more on his conscious that made him choose suicide. I'm really sorry about it, but there is nothing you can blame me for. Just remember, Dolores, you're now my subordinate. You put one toe out of line, and I'll crush you. In fact, you would do very well to look for other employment. You have single-handedly caused trouble in this house for far too many people and disrupted proper work in service of the wizarding public with your crazy schemes."

Those were clear words. Amelia had to watch her back, because she wouldn't have been astonished if Umbridge went that step too far to kill her. And indeed, Umbridge was seething after the dressing down. She did hatch plans and decided to use the most female of all tricks, poison. Unfortunately for her, she was observed by the second assistant, who had arrived at the office just as Umbridge tried to be inconspicuous putting some powder into the Minister's tea.

Barbara Wilson had been Fudge's and was now Amelia's personal assistant, and from the first day she liked her new boss a lot more than her old one. Amelia had talked with her and had learned that she had already thought of leaving when Fudge offed himself.

As she now watched Umbridge putting some unknown substance into her boss's tea, she kept silent and when Umbridge tried to get out of the room inconspicuously, she still kept quiet. But the moment Umbridge was gone, she said:

"Let me take the tea to the Minister, Kirsten!"

"Fine with me – it's ready!" her colleague replied.

Barbara lifted the tablet and took it to Amelia's office. Her boss looked up.

"Ah! Tea! Yay…" she said.

"I'll have to disappoint you, Amelia, unfortunately I've just watched Umbridge put something in it… I'd suggest calling the Aurors instead."

"Oh! She's THAT dumb? I wouldn't have thought…"

Two hours later two Aurors arrested the Senior Undersecretary, Dolores Jane Umbridge in her office.

"Dolores Jane Umbridge, surrender your wand, you are arrested!" said Kingsley Shacklebolt calmly.

Of course, she screeched immediately:

"And on what charge, you brute?"

"The charge is an attempt on the life of our new Minister by using poison. I'm afraid you were seen when you put it in and the tea was tested. Surrender your wand now!"

She pulled it, but she tried to use it instead of surrendering it and cast a spell on Kingsley. He sidestepped it coolly and grinned.

"Well, you asked for it… Expelliarmus!"

Umbridge's wand flew out of her hand and she flew against the wall behind her desk from Kingsley's spell. She sank to the floor like a sack of flour. Kingsley picked up her wand, stunned her and levitated her to the Auror headquarters. Soon she found herself seated in an interrogation room opposite Joanne McGovern, who was livid.

"You have been a nuisance since you set foot into this house, Umbridge, but you've gone too far now. Trying to poison Amelia is not only bloody plump, it's infamous! Who do you think you are?"

It took Veritaserum to bring it out of Umbridge. She was taken into custody and put before the Wizengamot two days later. Three questions later she was done for. The verdict was a hard one – she got 50 years in Azkaban for it. She wouldn't survive eight months of it.

That left Amelia free to choose her own team. She kept her personal assistant, Barbara Wilson, but the other one was replaced in another department. A new second assistant was hired and then Amelia coaxed Arthur Weasley out of his little office and into the big wide world. But Arthur turned out to be an excellent Senior Undersecretary. He was able to anticipate Amelia's thoughts and she hardly needed to say anything after only a few days, they were so in sync. Together they discussed what needed to be done, and in cooperation with the DMLE they organised the working schedules to go over the law code. In a first step they invited lawyers from all around Britain (there weren't that many) to convene and decide on the team that would be working on it.

The next steps would be going through the laws to analyse the code for anything that was redundant, blatantly discriminating or outdated. The third step was to isolate these laws and bring them before the Wizengamot, where they could be rescinded or renegotiated. And the last step would be the proposal to replace what needed replacement.

O

Meanwhile at Hogwarts, Minerva called for a staff meeting on Saturday morning just before the Yule ball. She wanted to see all adults in the castle, even though it was Christmas Eve.

"I'm not going to hold you for long, but I want to use every moment I can get! I need your creativity, my dears. Elizabeth Montgomery and the school governors have just granted me leave to implement an idea I've had. I want to reform Hogwarts and its curriculum from the roots to the top. For that I'll be heavily relying on your expertise as well. And to give us ample time for this work we'll put in what I'll call a Transition Year. This transition year will mean an extra year for all students, who are currently at Hogwarts and those who will start Hogwarts, meaning that the current seven years and next year's first years will actually have eight school years here. Also, Amelia has kindly doubled the budget for Hogwarts at the WEA! That means, we can hire a good number of teachers for several new subjects.

"For the students it will mean limited classwork, but still classwork, homework should be minimal. OWLs and NEWTs won't be held at the end of this year. Thus we can spread the schoolwork over two years, adding a bit of extra content. In that year I wish for a lot more formal socialising for the students than they usually have. A lot more informal across the houses, too, I hope.

"For us it means that we work over lesson plans, requirements, extra subjects and what will be asked for these extra subjects. As I've told Lizzie, I intend to make language classes for English, Latin and one foreign language further core subjects. I will add a Muggle science class, which will cover mathematics, physics and biology, also as a core subject. These will help more to understand modern Muggle life better than any Muggle Studies class we've had so far. I'll also make a mixed Muggle and Magical Studies a mandatory subject. This will include practical sides of both ends only, taught ideally by one pureblood and one Muggle-born teacher. Remus will take up History more in depth and will cover both sides in one class. Mixing these classes will make it absolutely natural and the students won't think that something is just forced down their throats. I'm sure they will enjoy these subjects, even if they think they're useless at the beginning. But as they will be mostly practical and especially for the Muggle/Magical Studies class there will be no exam. Maybe an OWL and NEWT, but no exams in between.

"That seems to be an awful lot. But frankly, at the moment our children live in the late 20th century and are educated perfectly for a life in the 16th century. That has to stop. I don't want to see one magical child wondering how the Muggles get by without magic anymore. If they're inclined to use a Discman they should do so, because it's fun, not because it's a Muggle device. They should be able to discover how useful computers are, how far they can get with a bike and that it doesn't make a difference if you have a kneazle at home or a cat. This way they will blend in so much better and they will stop thinking they're so much better. They should recognise that they're different, because they have magic, but that's all."

Minerva let that sink in for a moment. She knew that her current staff was very open-minded, but most were still of the opinion that they did much better staying away from that other world, that much larger world out there.

"In short, I want to see the next generations growing up not thinking that they are 'venturing' out there when they have to go amongst the Muggles, just that they're going somewhere."

"Well said, Minerva!" said Lily and smiled.

At the moment she was the only Muggle-born witch on the staff. She had no problems going back to her world and she had pulled James, Sirius and Remus with her often enough, that none of them had any problems either, especially Remus had spent a lot of his time in the Muggle world since 1981, so they all were very interested in what Minerva had to say.

"I'm really looking forward to that, Minerva!" said Remus.

"I thought you would be. – Now, you are to go through your curriculums and look for things you might change – also to change the routine. Educate yourself next year for influences from the Muggle world. Don't advertise them, just quietly bring up subjects within your subjects that have a relation in the Muggle world. I'll bring in people who can help us doing that. Try to go for more practical wherever you can. Have them study up on the theory for homework and use classes more for the practical work. Reading is not something that should be done in class. Our field is a mostly practical one and we've cluttered it with all that reading and theory in class because we've had to fill the time. I want to cut at least one lesson per core subject, in the upper two years I'll cut even two. That means we can go for one double lesson per subject per week in the five core subjects. Fills less than half of the students' weekly class load. Then we add a double lesson in science, Muggle and Magical Studies and astronomy, one lesson each for the three languages and we have 19 lessons for the main schoolwork, leaving ample lesson time for electives. I'll up the minimum number of electives to three, adding another certain six lessons, if we allocate double lessons for those, which means the average student will have 25 lessons per week. That's six lessons for four, and seven lessons for the fifth day. Enough space for the odd further elective and certainly enough study time."

"I don't think that's too much. Also more than enough time for homework," admitted Pomona Sprout.

"Exactly. Now for the two upper classes. NEWTs years mean more concentration on the chosen subjects. We should also up the minimum number of classes for the NEWTs to seven, currently they're five, with which we would get to 28 lessons per week. That should work well with the older years.

"If we look at the workload that gives the teachers with a core subject a minimum of 24 or 28 lessons, if we keep taking two houses together. Sirius and James split their classes along the houses, but naturally they keep the same number of lessons, unless they teach their classes together, then it should be halved. For the moment they're still separate for each house. What do you think about the current workload, Sirius? James?"

"It's fine. But it does make me wonder how you did all this alone without a time-turner!" James remarked.

"Never mind that. Would you prefer to teach both your respective houses together?"

"Actually no! I think it's better to have smaller classes. The teaching quality is higher and one can move much faster with fewer students. I remember we had classes with another house and I was often horribly bored in some subjects, just because I had to wait for those in the class who weren't as quick as myself," James admitted.

"A good observation. Now that you can see the other side, I'm not surprised you noticed that."

"I always knew. But it's a pleasure to get on with more in a shorter time, because in a smaller class you have prospectively less children who need the teacher more than others and everyone profits. You might consider it for some of the other core subjects. And, depending on the number of interested students, for some of the electives, too."

"I would love to. Of course, it's a budget question, but as I said, Amelia just doubled our budget at the WEA – that's who's responsible for the teacher side of the costs, that's where our salaries come from. There are other discussions, especially on the side of the tuition fees. So far, there were unfair tuition fees as half-bloods and Muggle-borns paid considerably more than the purebloods. These will be straightened out and I plan to suggest that we will set up a fund. Hogwarts already has a lot of antiques that are never seen by anyone and one of the things I plan to do is an auction next summer, where we can hand these things out. There are several Gringotts vaults full of paintings, furniture, even jewels, lots of other antiques, these should be seen and used! I will also set up an account for donations, and with the income from that auction I'll set up a fund, from which costs are going to be covered in the future. On that basis I hope to reduce the tuition fees. We have to see, what we can do in this regard. Hogwarts doesn't have high overhead costs apart from our salaries. We have some outlay in the Potions department, the hospital wing, materials in general and food. Most of our food comes from the farm that belongs to the school. What we need to buy is the more special stuff.

"All of that leads me to the hiring of several new teachers. As you know, James and Sirius share the job – they also share the income for it. Lily is going to do the same with Rebecca Bones, once Rebecca joins us. I would offer a similar agreement for you two as well, Filius and Pomona. How you split your classes, in upper and lower years or between the houses is fully up to you. If we hire teaching assistants, you can be ascertained of 75% of your salary at half the work."

Filius and Pomona looked at each other. They were both getting on in their years, Pomona a grannie of seven grandchildren already and Filius reaching his 100th birthday in just a few years.

"Will you let us some time to think about that offer, Minerva? – I know that for me it's not the salary, it is the workload rather than that. I truly enjoy my teaching and my classes, but I'm not the youngest anymore," said Filius.

"Of course, you can take time to think about it, it is rather spontaneous, isn't it? First thoughts from you, Pomona?"

"For me, it would be the time that gets freed – the money is fine, I have more than enough for the rest of my life. I never needed a lot, spending almost all of my time here. But I'd be able to see my grandchildren more often, they're all still small and won't be coming to Hogwarts yet."

"One month enough time?" Minerva asked.

"Yes, more than ample, thank you very much!"

"Good. Now then, we still have an important position to fill. I suppose I'd best turn to our younger staff members, because the position comes with another little load of work. I need a Deputy head-person. Who's it to be?"

She looked towards the younger staff members, including Professors Vector and Sinistra and immediately five of them pointed at Remus and Remus pointed at Lily.

"Seems to be a vote of confidence for Remus right there, what do you all think?"

"Me? But I can't possibly…" Remus started, but he was interrupted by Carla Vector, who exclaimed:

"Who cares about your furry little problem – and yes, James, I know very well that that's how you refer to it – we all know that you are excellently organised, correct and fair! What's more to want in a deputy headmaster? For the full moon nights I gladly offer to cover for you."

"Thanks, Carla…" Remus mumbled.

"So, again, what do you all think? Are you okay with Remus as your chief of staff?" asked Minerva.

There wasn't a single dissenting vote, so she smiled and said:

"Congratulations to a shedload more work, Remus! I'll inform the concerned authorities correspondingly."

"Thanks… I think," said Remus again, but he beamed.

It meant the world to him to be so fully accepted by all his colleagues. The ones who had known him as a student knew he was reliable and the ones he knew as friends simply loved him for who he was.

Sirius asked for the word:

"Minerva, you mentioned before that you would like more socialising for the students. May I suggest that we create more rooms for them to meet across the houses, not only the Great Hall. I'm thinking of rooms where they can study or just meet up or play. As far as I know this house has lots of unused rooms. We could redecorate them to be like little common rooms."

"Yes, I had been thinking of that as well, good suggestion, Sirius. Would you accept the job for the redecoration? I know you're very creative…"

James and Remus sniggered. Remus blew his lover a little kiss.

"Yeah, I know I'm gay… you needn't remind me," Sirius moaned, but he accepted the job, because he'd have a lot of fun with that.

"I'll give some courses for interested students, then they will know a few spells for that…" Sirius said.

"Sounds like a very good idea to me," confirmed Minerva.

After the meeting the teachers joined the general population of the school again, looking forward to the Christmas feasts that would take place on all three days. Of course, the Yule ball on Christmas day was the highlight of the festivities.

After breakfast the children that would not stay for the ball and the break were sent home. Two thirds of the students were taken to the train by the carriages.

The decorations throughout the main areas of Hogwarts and in the common rooms were spectacular as usual. But on Christmas day the kids were all thrown out right after lunch, to prepare the Hall for the ball. It also needed to be magically enlarged considerably. Everyone not involved with the decorating was encouraged to go outside. James, Aurora, Lily and Remus organised a big snowball fight, to which they pulled in everyone. It was massive fun, especially if one threw in the deviousness of the Weasley twins paired with the deviousness of the Marauders. In the end it was a clear tie between the two groups that had been mixed thoroughly.

Reviewing the match it was interesting to see how badly split Slytherin house was. There were students of all years who didn't mind to mingle with the others. Students of all four houses were in each of the two teams that had played along, but there were more than just a handful of students from Slytherin that were conspicuously absent from the fun. From the older years it was the complete Quidditch team. There were the children out of the most notable Death Eater families. For many of them it was understandable, whole families had been reduced by the active Death Eaters within. The Parkinsons, Malfoys, Averys, Crabbes and the Goyles had children at school, but also the Notts, though Theodore Nott, the current heir to the family, was steadfastly coming out with Blaise Zabini and took part in the fun.

Theo wasn't the only one who kept a light heart. He had taken the lesson from seeing and hearing what all these people had done and wanted nothing of it. He was one of a good handful of students. Even though it was his father, he'd shouted after him that he was glad his father would pay for his crimes. Back at home he'd claimed that what he'd done was just doing what was needed in the service of the Dark Lord. Theo now understood just what was included in that service.

He wasn't alone. In his class, there was also one Millicent Bulstrode, not the nicest kind of girl, but one with good manners and a good heart. She'd not come from a dark family. Then there was Daphne Greengrass, from a good neutral family and Tracy Davies, from a family with a half-blood father.

About thirty Slytherin students were still intermixed with the others and noticed that they were easily accepted. George and Fred took good notice, because these Slytherins would not be pranked hard anymore. Though at this time James and Remus had vigorously separated the twins and put one on each team. The twins took to it and delivered each other the hardest blows!

Altogether a lot of fun was had by all.


End file.
